


December 5th, 5:54pm

by JustRosey, only_freakin_donuts



Series: Wish You Were Here [1]
Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Cancer, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Leukemia, Major Illness, Pregnancy, buckle in folks it's gonna be a long bumpy ride, but it's also a fluff fic, it's a pregnancy fic, it's an angst fic, it's an illness fic, we had so much fun writing this, we're assholes, why can't we just let them be happy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-03-21 21:11:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 54,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13749321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustRosey/pseuds/JustRosey, https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: If the universe had made a plan to break her, she had to congratulate them. This is certainly the best way to achieve just that."Even if we can't find heaven, I'll walk through hell with you / Love, you're not alone, 'cause I'm gonna stand by you" ♡





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Honey, you've got a big storm comin'." 
> 
> Let me preface this by saying, Cate and I are SO excited to share this story with you and we can't wait for you to enter into this world with us! We've had so much fun, so many laughs, and so many tears spent while creating this fic. -Belle 
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @only-freakin-sunflowers and Cate @andtherewerefireworks, and Cate on Twitter @IwantWinter!

Happiness.

Something she never thought she would find.

Something she never even thought she had been looking for.

And yet here she is.

"What are you looking at, babe?"  
"Just you," Rose replies with that special smile she always reserves for the very source of all her happiness, who is currently sitting across from her on their big cozy sofa.  
"You look like a hot librarian when you look at me like that with your glasses on, you know,” Luisa chuckles, shifting closer to the redhead on the couch.  
"As if you'd mind,” Rose answers with a wide grin on her face, putting her book on child psychology down on the coffee table.

Warmth settles in Rose’s stomach as Luisa leaves her space on the couch and crawls into her lap. 

Warm brown eyes meet icy blue ones.

This is it.

This is perfect.

Rose tries to commit the feeling of this moment to her memory, forever. She gently cups Luisa’s face with her hands, and closes her eyes in anticipation for this magical spark, the one that always shoots through her body when their lips meet.

-

They had been trying for a few months now.

 

Luisa knows that for Rose, it is not something she considers necessary to be happy in their life, but they had talked a lot and Rose had said yes to having a baby together, even though she admitted she wasn't sure she would manage to be a good parent.

Luisa had known before; she had a smaller chance than of getting pregnant than most women,, due to increasing age, but she was willing to try anyways. It was either her carrying their baby or adoption, because Rose had been very straightforward about not wanting anything that lives, grows and is capable of kicking inside her for nine months.

The last three times, her body had failed to create life within her body and Luisa had somewhat lost hope. Rose however, had been surprisingly positive and never failed to cheer Luisa up.  
"This time it's gonna work, honey! I feel it," she had said at the last appointment, kissing Luisa's temple and all her negative thoughts away.

Luisa smiles to herself now when she thinks about that day. Rose had been right.

She had decided to cook the one and only dish she actually prepares better than Rose for dinner tonight – lasagna.  
"Hey hon… " is whispered warmly into her ear and freckled arms are wrapped around Luisa's waist from behind, soft kisses peppered on her neck, making Luisa shiver.  
"Hey, how was work?" she asks a little breathless almost spilling the water she was about to pour.  
"Work was great as always. And it's Friday, so I get to spend the whole day with you tomorrow.  
And right now I seem to be getting amazing Italian food in addition!" Rose smiles, while she still clings to Luisa’s back, who pours herself some grape juice and carries their glasses over to the table.

 

Once they sit down and clink their glasses together, Luisa isn’t able to hold it in anymore. "I'm pregnant, Rose! It worked. We're having a baby!" she squeals, after taking one hurried sip, trying to swallow the juice and not choke on it.  
Blue eyes widen across the table and in the next second, Luisa is lifted out of her chair. "I knew it," Rose laughs, spinning Luisa around once, before putting her down gently on the floor again.  
The happiness is genuine. Luisa can tell, she can feel it in their tight embrace. Rose is actually happy about this and that makes Luisa's happiness double in size. This is it. This is what she’d always wanted. 

And now she finally gets to have it. And the fact that she gets to have it with Rose makes her still think she is dreaming.

-

Rose wakes up with a skull splitting headache the following morning. 

She’d been having these a lot lately, especially since the museum director had given her the honour of being part of the team that organized this new exhibition. Maybe Luisa was right, she should slow down a little when it came to her newly acquired job, but she had always been a perfectionist and loves the chance she’s been given too much to not give 110 percent. She had never gotten to do something she loves as much as art for a job. She quietly slips out of bed and puts on her running gear. She needs fresh air after the big baby news yesterday and this way, she could pick up breakfast on her way back.

Rose curses under her breath. Only fifteen minutes into her usual routine and she already feels like she has run a marathon. The stupid headache doesn't seem to get better either. With more cursing and less speed than usual, she manages to make it through her workout after all, and stops by a little bakery to pick up some goods for breakfast.

Still half asleep, Luisa stumbles down the stairs when she hears the front door. "Morning babe, how was your run?" she hums sleepily, kissing Rose's bare shoulder from behind.  
"To be honest, it sucked. My head is trying to kill me today… Hon, I'm all sweaty and disgusting - I'll jump in the shower and we can have breakfast, okay?" Rose gives Luisa a quick kiss on her head and wriggles out of her embrace.

Yet, even after the shower and two cups of her beloved coffee, combined with a pain reliever, Rose’s head still isn’t any better.  
"Rose?" Luisa asks worriedly, looking at the redhead sitting across the table. She hadn’t got an answer to the question she’d just asked her.  
Rose opens her eyes again, as she hears her name, but continues to knead her temples with her fingers. "Sorry Lu, what did you say?" she asks.  
"I was asking if you took something for your headache already?" Luisa repeats, looking at Rose with her head tilted and her brows wrinkled with worry.  
"Yes, I took ibuprofen when I came back, but… " Rose answers, the whine in her voice obvious.  
"Doesn't seem to be kicking in yet? Come on, you should lie down for a while," Luisa suggests and gently leads Rose to their couch in the living room, pushing her down into the comfy pillows, and putting a blanket over her outstretched body. "Close your eyes and rest a while babe," she whispers through a soft kiss that Rose immediately tries to deepen greedily.  
"Stay… here on… the couch with… me," Rose manages to get out between the kisses.  
"You should sleep Rose… if I stay here now we know how this is going to end,” Luisa grins. “I'll clean up breakfast and then I'll grab a magazine and join you, okay?" Luisa settles and presses one last quick smack on Rose’s lips.

About ten minutes later, Luisa steps into the living room again as quietly as possible. She isn't sure if Rose would have fallen asleep already, but to her surprise she finds her lover basically knocked out, dangerously close to rolling off the couch. "You dummy," Luisa smiles to herself, lifting Rose’s pale arm back onto the sofa and sits down on the small vacant spot that is left behind Rose’s never ending legs.

It was still surreal to them, especially to Luisa, that being together was no longer risky. Since they had decided to move away from Miami, away from all the negative memories, away from prying eyes, away from people they once called family– they’d been so happy. They had each other now, and finally nobody was able to keep them apart. They had bought a big, beautiful house by the sea in Fort Lauderdale. Both of them loved it from the first moment on, less because of what the house looked like but more so because they were living in it together. They finally got to be together. 

-

"Everything's looking great, Ms. Alver!" the doctor says, while going over Luisa’s still flat stomach with the transducer.  
Luisa intensely follows the pictures on the monitor displaying the inside of her own belly. She wasn’t too sure if she should feel good about the fact that she knew pretty much everything concerning pregnancies or if it should make her worry just a little bit.  
"I'll see you in two weeks then,” the doctor finishes, after wiping the gel off Luisa’s stomach and shakes the brunette's hand before exiting the room.

Walking back to the car Luisa thinks about the future.  
She is finally living a life with Rose. And now they were going to have a baby. A little person in their life. She couldn’t wait. She has never been happier.

 

"Rose?"  
Dropping her keys on the little table by the entrance, Luisa walks in calling her love’s name. Rose should have been back from work by now. She hadn't joined Luisa at the obstetrician’s this time because she wanted to work a little more on the exhibition at the art gallery.  
Walking into their living room, Luisa finds Rose on the couch, fast asleep, still dressed in her work clothes, her laptop sitting on the side table being the only source of light in the dim living room.  
"Hey sleepyhead, I thought you wanted to work?" Luisa mocks and kneels down beside Rose’s head on the couch, stroking a lock of red hair away from her forehead.  
Rose shoots up, startled by Luisa's voice. "Oh, I didn't hear you come home. How did the appointment go?"  
"Everything looks great," Luisa calms her, giving her a quick kiss on the lips.  
"I'm glad," Rose yawns, slightly wincing when she sits up.

"Headache again babe?" Luisa asks, eyebrows knit together with concern. Rose had been feeling under the weather for the past few weeks; frequent headaches, no appetite, low energy (even in the bedroom, and that meant something; nothing good really) and to Luisa she looked even paler than usual.  
Rose ignores the question and grabs her laptop instead.  
"You never fall asleep on the couch, yet you have been a lot lately… you work too hard, Rose. I know you love the opportunity this is for you but–" Luisa tries carefully, but is quickly cut off by Rose.  
"I'm okay. Yes, I'll admit the exhibition is stressing me out a tiny bit, but it'll be done soon and then everything will be a bit more relaxed again," she dismisses her love’s worries quickly, or at least makes an effort to do so. Slender fingers find Luisa's hand and squeeze it comfortingly, while she answers more gentle now. "I'll have more time for my love and the little bug inside her belly soon. Promise. I will not miss another appointment."

-

 

Luisa can't help but grin at the sight of Rose's face, as Rose tries to see all the things on the ultrasound monitor the doctor is talking about. The way her brows are furrowed leaves no doubt she has not the slightest idea of what the black and white mess on the monitor is supposed to show.  
"Rose," Luisa points to the monitor, "that's the little face right there!"  
"What? Where? How can you recognise anything on this?!" Rose asks, shaking her head in confusion.  
"Look, here's the head and that's the little arms there! Do you see it?" Luisa says, pointing her finger at the monitor.  
"Aah… yeah," Rose replies slowly, making Luisa and the doctor strongly doubt it to be true.  
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Luisa laughs and slaps Rose’s arm playfully.  
“I have neither studied medicine, nor have I been a practicing gynecologist. I am smart enough to know you and the doctor see those things, but I do not! And I don’t see how this is funny,” Rose replies with a pout and crosses her arms. She doesn’t like being laughed at for something she’s not good at. If she could have it her way, she’d always be the smartest person in the room.  
“Babe, I am not laughing at you, I’m sorry if I made you feel like I was, but the look of confusion on your face just now was too adorable,” Luisa tries to soothe her hot-tempered redhead and sits up to put a hand on her cheek. “Will you accept an apology kiss?” she adds, voice low and smooth. Rose lingers for a moment, staring into Luisa’s warm eyes. A smile lifts the corners of her mouth and she leans in for that kiss, feeling more than even with Luisa again.

-

 

"Would you like some ice cream for dessert?" Luisa yells from the kitchen.  
"No thanks, Lu!" Rose answers smiling to herself. Luisa is eight weeks pregnant and the food rage has started. She is hungry at basically any time of the day and her food combinations were getting weirder and weirder. Ice cream in particular has become Luisa’s number one treat. Since it is really warm outside, it isn’t too strange to eat ice cream, but the sheer amount Luisa is able to consume lately never fails to amaze Rose.

"You barely had any dinner and now you don't even want dessert?" a spoon licking Luisa asks, standing in the doorframe.  
"I'm just not very hungry today, and besides, I would feel horrible if I ate all my beautiful pregnant girlfriend’s food," Rose smiles.  
"You're just looking forward to me becoming gigantic!" Luisa rolls her eyes and plops down on the couch beside Rose.  
"I have to admit, I can't wait for your baby bump to be showing," Rose purrs, pulling Luisa down with her, tangling her fingers into her long brown tresses and steals a sweet kiss tasting of strawberries.  
"Later, okay? I don't want my ice cream go to waste," Luisa whispers and eagerly sits up to grab her bowl again.  
"You are unbelievable! You’re choosing ice cream over the temptation that is me?" the redhead pouts, looking at Luisa with her best hurt puppy eyes.  
"You definitely are the sweetest, but… " Luisa giggles, pressing a cold kiss to Rose's nose and then continues shoving ice cream into her own mouth.

-

A few days later, Luisa wordlessly observes Rose coming back from her run. The redhead's face doesn't have the healthy pinkish hue to it that it normally has after the workout. Rose is white as a wall, dark circles under her eyes, and Luisa can't help but wonder if the sheen of sweat actually comes from running or from something else.

"What's going on with you…You aren’t feeling good, are you?" she asks slowly.  
The reply from the redhead comes out way too hurriedly to be sincere."What? No! I'm fine. Why?"  
"Jesus, Rose, you are the worst liar I've ever met," Luisa grumbles, walking over and taking a closer look at her.  
"I'm okay, I just… “ Rose stops mid sentence, as Luisa puts a hand against her warm, clammy forehead.  
"You have a temperature, darling. You're probably coming down with something. Maybe that's why you’ve barely wanted to eat lately… " Luisa says worriedly, stroking a stray strand of Rose’s hair behind her ear.  
"I'm fine, Lu. I'm gonna take a shower now, I can't be late to work." With that Rose walks away from Luisa's concerned eyes and makes her way up the stairs.  
Luisa knows, she wouldn’t stand the slightest chance of convincing Rose to call in sick for the day and rest, so she doesn’t even try. She stands in the silent hallway and hears the shower being turned on upstairs. “God Rose… why can’t you ever slow down…” Luisa sighs and starts climbing the stairs herself.

-

Luisa has been waiting for about twenty minutes at their favourite Italian restaurant and has checked her watch about fifty times, wondering if she had misunderstood the time they were supposed to meet here. Rose is usually the most punctual person this world has ever known. She’d always insist on showing up at least ten minutes early, anywhere, just so Luisa never had to wait for her alone.

When Rose finally shows up, just as Luisa is about to call her, she is completely out of breath.  
“I’m so sorry, darling! I… I just forgot to check the time and then it was already half past five!” The redhead wheezes, before pressing her lips to Luisa’s in an affectionate kiss, slinging both her arms around the smaller woman and hugging her tightly. “So sorry!”  
“Hey, slow down babe, you’re here now, it’s fine! I’m glad you seem to enjoy the museum work so much, and you have to tell me everything about your day, but right now all I can think of is dinner; the baby and I are starving,” Luisa smiles and grabs Rose’s hand as they enter the restaurant.

Once they sit down at their usual table, Luisa reaches for the menu immediately, letting her eyes wander over all the great dishes she could be shoveling into her rumbling tummy soon.

“Really Rose? Salad again?” Luisa asks with concern in her voice, once the waiter had taken their order and left.  
“Why not? It’s good here,” Rose answers innocently, yet avoids looking at Luisa.  
“What did you have for lunch?” Luisa asks with an admonitory tone.  
“I had… powdered donuts. I wasn’t too hungry and I had no time for a lunch break anyways.” Rose answers and nervously licks her lips while she subconsciously starts fidgeting with the bracelet around her wrist.  
Luisa sighs. “Darling. You haven’t been eating properly for a while now, you’re losing weight. Why aren't you hungry? What’s wrong? Is something bothering you?”  
“It’s nothing Luisa, really. You don’t need to worry,” Rose says, trying to sound as positive as she can and puts on her best happy face, grabbing Luisa’s hand on the table.  
“Just… tell me if something is bothering you, if you don’t feel good, okay?” Luisa repeats, but tries to push the negative feeling away for the rest of the evening.

-

Later that night, a feeling of pressure in her lower abdomen wakes Luisa yet again. Feeling her firm, yet still flat belly she turns to her side, one arm reaching out for Rose’s sleeping form. But her hand reaches only cold sheets.  
She sits up. The space beside her is empty and there is light coming from the bathroom. A quick look on the alarm tells her it’s half past two in the morning.

 

Grumbling, Luisa gets up and shuffles to the door. "Rose? You in there?" she slurs sleepily, knocking on the door.  
No answer.  
"Rose, I have to pee too! Hurry up already!"  
Still no answer.  
Luisa is slightly angry now. It’s the middle of the night, and lately she needs to use the bathroom often, and now Rose is keeping her from peeing, and sleeping, and doesn't even have the decency to answer. Pulling the handle down, she finds the door unlocked to her surprise.  
The scene inside the bathroom however makes Luisa forget her anger and her own need of the toilet within a second.

"Oh my god, Rose!" Luisa kneels down on the cold tiles beside Rose, who is taken over by another wave of nausea, forcing her to lower her head over the toilet and throw up. "Darling… why didn't you wake me?" Luisa whispers, while soothingly stroking the redhead's neck, feeling the abnormal warmth radiating from the pale skin.  
Rose's body is shaking all over and she is left choking a couple more times, but her stomach seems to be empty. Completely exhausted, she sinks back against the tiles, still keeping her eyes closed.  
"Babe, talk to me," Luisa continues, stroking up and down Rose's shoulders, waiting for those blue eyes to open and look back at her.  
"There was probably something wrong with the salad, Lu… or I just had too many donuts. I'll brush my teeth and we can go back to bed, okay?" comes a weak answer, blue eyes still remaining shut and when Luisa pulls her into a hug, Rose lets her forehead drop to her love’s shoulder and they sit there for a while, thinking their own thoughts silently, before their strength to let go and get up comes back.

-

 

Unfortunately it happens again.  
Only four nights later, Luisa wakes up to the same scene in the bathroom.  
"You do know I'm the one who's pregnant, right? There's no point in you having morning sickness, Rose," Luisa murmurs, while she’s holding back Rose’s hair. Her ‘joke’ is rewarded with a tired smile.  
Luisa herself doesn't feel like smiling. She doesn't think her joke is funny, but she also doesn’t want to let Rose know that she’s scared. Something is not alright with Rose and Luisa is slowly starting to freak out.

When both of them crawl back into bed, Luisa slings her arms around Rose's feverish body and holds her as tight as she can. They are going to have a baby. Everything is going to be good. Then a thought crosses her mind: What if Rose was showing all those symptoms because she is so nervous about the baby? She had mentioned it a lot of times, how she had no idea of kids and that they’d be responsible for a child all their life and how she thought, she wouldn't be a good mom.  
"I love you, you'll be an amazing mom," Luisa mumbles through a kiss to Rose's warm forehead, before she drifts off to sleep too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) thanks for support so far guys! A few more answers this chapter for the events of last chapter.... 
> 
> From now on we will be posting a new chapter every Thursday, stay tuned!

"Rose! Rose! Wake up!"

Something is pressed against her nose. Rose opens her eyes and squints, finding all the lights switched on.

Blood. There are blood stains all over her pajama shirt.  
"You have a nosebleed!" Luisa states, panicking, forcing Rose's drowsy body to sit up.  
She is dizzy, everything seems so slow and her limbs feel painfully numb. She can't get herself to say anything. She remains numbly leaning on Luisa's chest, staring at the wall in front of them and at the red oil painting she had done exclusively for their bedroom.

After a while, Rose manages to gather her senses and grabs the bloody cloth from Luisa's hand.  
"I think it stopped bleeding now… " she informs her quietly.  
"Rose," Luisa’s voice pierces the silence like a sharp dagger and makes Rose flinch a little, knowing that there is going to be a speech. She doesn't have the courage to look the brunette in the eyes, so instead she stares at the barely showing baby bump and just waits.

"Something is wrong with you. I want you to be checked out by a doctor. This is not normal, Rose!" Luisa says, even louder this time.  
Rose tries to swallow the lump in her throat. She doesn't know what to say. She sees tears rolling down Luisa's cheeks.  
"What is going on with you? I'm starting to get scared!" the brunette sobs.  
The pain in Luisa's voice makes goosebumps appear all over pale freckled skin and Rose leans forward to wrap her crying love in a tight embrace.  
"Promise me. Promise me, you're gonna see a doctor, Rose," Luisa hiccups, holding on to the other woman tightly.  
"I promise. Please Lu… don't cry, not because of me. I'll be alright. Just like our baby will be," Rose tries to calm her. Rose isn’t sure if she really is okay; the truth is, probably not. She just knows she’s always been good at ignoring problems until she could no longer run from them.

-

“I have something to tell you,” Rose admits, speaking fast.  
“What?” Luisa chuckles, squeezing Rose’s hand as the nurse, an old friend of hers actually, ties a tourniquet around her upper arm, ready to draw blood; a routine part of prenatal checkups.  
Rose squeezes her hand tighter. “I’m really, really not fond of needles.”  
“Like, you’re scared?” Luisa asks. It didn’t faze her at all; she saw much worse in medical school. She almost became a surgeon, actually, that would’ve been lots of blood and syringes. It was almost cute to her that Rose, who seemed fearless and brazen in nature, was scared of something so harmless and natural.  
Rose nods quickly, looking away from the vial and down at Luisa’s tiny little bump, her new favorite fascination.

“Okay,” the nurse interrupts, pulling the needle out and snapping off the tourniquet. “You, Luisa, are all done. We’ll have your results soon.” She looks to Rose. “You too?”  
Rose nods again, slower and calmer this time, though her complexion, paler than usual, gives her away.  
“Have you eaten anything today?” Luisa interrupts. “You can’t get blood drawn on an empty stomach, babe, you’ll pass out.”  
“That wouldn’t be the reason I’d pass out,” Rose contends, “but I ate this morning.”  
“Okay,” Luisa nods, giving the nurse the go ahead. “You’re going to be okay. I’ll hold your hand, it’s a small needle and a small amount of blood.”  
That’s a lie. Luisa knows that the needle could be a lot smaller and she could be getting a lot less blood drawn, but what Rose didn’t know wouldn't hurt her.

“Don’t look down, look at me,” Luisa snaps her fingers. “My eyes, up here. Hellooo.”  
Rose drifts her eyes upward into Luisa’s and she can’t help but smile. “It’s not that bad, right?”  
Rose shrugs. It’s true, she’d been through worse, she’s been shot more than once.

“Why the blood test?” the nurse asks. “Are you pregnant too?”  
“Are you?” Luisa jokes. “Did you go back to sleeping with men and not tell me?”  
Rose chuckles. “Never.” She focuses her attention back to the nurse. “I’ve been having some alarming changes in my health,” she says carefully. “Fatigue, headaches, weight loss, nausea, nosebleeds.”  
Luisa observes the nurse closely, watching her hesitant, bleak reaction, before the woman speaks again.  
“What’d your doctor say about that?” she asks.  
“She sent me here,” Rose points out but doesn’t mention the doctor she’d seen was at a walk-in clinic. “For this blood test.”  
“Can I recommend something?” the nurse asks. “I’d get a bone marrow biopsy. It’s a pain in the ass, literally, but helpful.”  
“Why would she need a bone marrow biopsy?” Luisa asks, almost defensively. “What would that be looking for?” She thinks she knows, she just doesn’t want to be the one to say it.  
“What’s a bone marrow biopsy?” Rose asks quietly, confused and feeling out of the know.  
The nurse sighs. “With a bone marrow biopsy, they’re basically taking a sample of the fluid inside your bone to test it for abnormalities in your blood cells, like lymphoma or leukemia; blood cancers. They take it from your posterior pelvic bone. They’ll numb the area, it isn’t the most comfortable procedure though.”

“Y-you want me to get fluid taken from my hip bone?” Rose asks, her voice wavering just a little. That meant more big needles, in her back this time, and in her bone. The thought of that distracted her from the nurse finishing with her arm.  
“Just my opinion, you can opt for a better one if you’d like,” she shrugs. “I will also have your results in a few days. Both of you need to stay sitting down for the next few minutes to finish these and then you are free to go.” She leaves the office after giving them both boxes of orange juice, to raise their blood sugar.

“So they want to stick a needle in your bum and test for cancer,” Luisa sighs, trying to come to terms with it as she stabs her juice box with her straw. “It’s fine. We can handle it. It’ll be fine.” She needs to be the strong one right now, she isn’t the one who needed a bone marrow biopsy. “I’ll hold your hand, just like I did today, and it’ll be okay. And you don’t have cancer, Rose, that’s ridiculous. That’s the worst case scenario.” 

-

“It’s going to be okay, it is going to be okay,” Luisa repeats, over and over in a rhythmic, soothing mantra, squeezing both Rose’s hands. “Keep your eyes closed and keep squeezing my hands. It’ll be over soon.”  
This hurts more than getting shot, Rose has to admit. She doesn’t think she’s overreacting either, though it wouldn’t be the first time.  
“Is it over yet?” she whines quietly, not willing to let the doctor hear the discomfort, fear even, in her voice.  
“Not yet, but soon,” Luisa replies, not that she’s looking. It’s gross, she doesn’t need to see that. Her stomach dropped when she saw the biopsy needle, and she wasn’t even the one who claimed to be afraid of needles (besides, that thing wasn’t a needle, it was a screwdriver-sized monster).  
“Think about something else,” she tries, and smiles. “Think about our baby, instead. We get to find out the gender soon…”  
Rose knows the gender. She knows, in her heart, they were going to have a girl. She isn’t even entertaining the idea of them having a son. What would they do with a boy? How would they raise a boy? They knew very minimal about boys, even if they did both grow up with younger brothers, for at least part of their lives.  
“I know what you’re thinking,” Luisa smiles. “You think it’s a girl. Well, it’s not inside of you, is it?”  
“You don’t think it’s a girl? C’mon,” Rose smirks. “If there is a God, He wouldn’t bestow a boy upon us.”  
“That’s fair,” Luisa nods, laughing a little at the thought of them raising a boy, it was true, it’d be a challenge. “But, you never know.”  
“If it’s a girl, which, it’s going to be, we’ll name her Mia, okay?” Rose says simply. Her eyes are closed, so she can’t see Luisa’s reaction.  
It’s stunned, it’s mystified. It’s complete adoration too. 

After a moment, Rose opens her eyes, because she didn't get an auditory reaction out of Luisa.  
“Y-yeah,” Luisa stumbles, finally finding her words. “I would really like that. I’m surprised you–”  
“Remembered?” Rose finishes. “I was right there with you, while you were looking for her, and when you thought you found her. I know how much she meant to you.”  
Luisa smiles and nods, shyly remembering holding Susanna’s hand and going to visit the woman she thought was her mom. That was Rose, there with her. She was always there, through the thick and the thin, and she hopes this is a two way street, that she could be there through Rose’s thick and thin too; like right now.  
“It’s settled then,” Rose smiles. “The world’s going to have a Mia Alver in it again.”  
“Mia Solano-Alver,” Luisa interjects. “She’s as much yours as she is mine.”  
“Solano isn’t mine,” Rose shakes her head. “Truly, it’s more yours than mine.”  
Luisa ignores her last sentence, mentally shuddering. “Mia Ruvelle-Alver, then?”  
Rose shakes her head again. “We’ll know she’s mine, she doesn’t need a name to show it. Names are overrated.”  
Luisa rolls her eyes, “Says the woman who’s changed her name how many times?” 

Their talk had distracted them, and they hadn’t realized that the doctor had finished with Rose’s biopsy, he is just applying pressure now to stop the incision site from bleeding, and he’s smiling at his patient and her cute future plans. With the conversation dwindling, Luisa looks to the doctor now, and he smiles again. “We’ll have the results soon, and our patient will be left with nothing but a bruise to show for the experience.”  
“Thank you,” both women say at the same time.  
“Best of luck, with the new baby,” he says, before gracefully exiting the room. 

-

"Can you go grab some fruit and vegetables while I get the ice cream, babe?" Luisa asks, not looking up from her grocery list.  
"More ice cream? Really? Did you finish all the Ben & Jerry's we had in the freezer already?!" Rose asks, still mind blown about how much ice cream seems to disappear in Luisa’s tummy lately.  
".... yeah?" Luisa slowly answers, looking up into the taller woman’s eyes. Rose giggles, while pulling the brunette closer, giving her a quick kiss on the lips.  
"The little bug inside your belly is gonna catch a cold if you continue freezing it with so much ice cream." she teases.  
"I am at least making sure it gets its vitamins too before dessert! Do I have to remind you what your diet lately consists of? Powdered donuts and gallons of coffee!" Luisa pouts, putting her own hand gently over Rose's on her slightly swollen stomach. The redhead has been touching her belly a lot lately. It seemed to fascinate her and she had admitted that she loved it so much. Just this morning, in the shower she had told Luisa how beautiful she was with her tiny baby bump, while both of her freckled arms were slung around the smaller woman from behind.  
"You said you might get the results at the ultrasound today right? Proving that I’m right about the thing in there being a girl!" Rose says, when she comes back carrying bags laden with fruits and veggies.  
"Yes! It’s about the time now when you can start to tell what it’ll be,” Luisa chirps happily, carrying four cartons of ice cream that she drops into the shopping cart seconds later.

“Ouch!” Rose gasps, when Luisa wraps her arms around her waist from behind, while the taller woman is pushing the cart.  
“I’m sorry darling, I forgot about your biopsy bruise,” Luisa apologizes, sliding her hand further up. “You are a bit whiny though, you know…”she adds with a cheeky grin, kissing Rose’s neck.  
“Excuse me? Have you seen it? It’s all purple and getting bigger and bigger! And I’m not whiny, it really does hurt!” Rose replies, deliberately whiny-voiced.  
A beeping noise interrupts their conversation.  
“Hello? Yes, this is Rose Ruvelle. Okay… alright. I’ll stop by this afternoon and pick up the results then? Great. Thank you very much.”

-

“Okay,” Luisa grins, plopping down on the couch across from Rose. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face. “Our baby’s gender is written inside this envelope… are you ready?”  
Rose nods, but Luisa can’t help but notice that she doesn’t look as excited. She looks nervous, stressed even.  
“Wait,” Luisa starts. “Do we want to look at your test results first?”  
“No, no,” Rose argues. “Yours first.”  
“Are you sure?” Luisa asks.  
“Yes, Luisa, I am very sure,” Rose replies shortly. “Let’s… let’s do it, let’s open that envelope. Let’s find out what we’re having…!” She forces a smile. She can be very convincing when she has to be, but that wasn’t a secret.  
It’s enough to convince Luisa to open the envelope and peek at the results, biting her lip to keep from smiling. “Okay, guess! You have a 50/50 shot at being right, so no pressure.”  
Rose rolls her eyes, smiles, and effortlessly plays along. “We’re having a girl, Luisa.”  
Luisa squeals and nods. She’s so excited, at everything really. The fact that they can stop calling the baby an “it” or a “they” or a “thing” (though really she loves that Rose keeps calling it a ‘bug’) makes Luisa even more excited about her pregnancy. The mere prospect of them raising a girl was exciting her too; pink frilly things, and braids, and ballet slippers, and Barbie. It excites Rose too, it really does reach in and tickle her cold heart; but right now she’s not sure anything can.  
And she hates that she has to share this mood with Luisa, because she fears it’ll destroy her. God knows she’s already hurt Luisa enough for one lifetime… and this just might be the worst yet. There wasn’t any way around it, though. She had to put what little feelings she had, all concerning Luisa, of course, aside, and just… say it. 

“We need to talk about my test results for a second,” Rose says bluntly, bringing Luisa’s energy way down low. Just her love’s tone scares her, when the words haven’t even left her mouth yet. She’s worried her worst fears since this all came about are coming true. And they are.

Rose gulps. “The doctor today told me that I have… acute myelogenous leukemia.”  
The room goes silent as Luisa processes what Rose just said. “Y-you what?”  
Rose nods. “I–”  
“I heard what you said,” Luisa whispers. There are tears in her eyes and Rose hates this already.  
“How? How did this even happen, it was just some headaches and some weight loss? It wasn’t anything, really, except it’s… cancer.”  
Rose moves beside her and puts a hand on the side of her face. “It’s going to be okay,” she reassures her. “I can handle this.”  
“Of course you can,” Luisa mumbles, smiling just a little. As if she’d ever doubt Rose’s strength, even against something as menacing as cancer. It didn’t even feel real yet. “What’s next?” Luisa asks. “What are we doing to get past this?”  
“Well, the doctor suggested chemotherapy, as soon as possible,” Rose replies. “It’s aggressive, but it’s just as aggressive as my… as my cancer is. And it’ll help me more than it’ll hurt me.”  
Luisa nods, wiping her eyes. “If that’s what you need,” she agrees. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe this is happening.”  
Rose nods, continuing to gently stroke a thumb along her cheek. “Me neither,” she answers softly. Her voice hardens as she continues. “But there is no way that I am letting this diagnosis get in the way of our little girl’s arrival. There is no way I am letting it stop me from being there for you and for her. Do you hear me?”

Luisa hopes she could keep that promise. She really, really does.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Sometimes love acts out of spite / and good things happen overnight /  
> Can't take it slow 'cause you and I are pushing time..."

The steady swooshing of the waves rolling up the hot sand has a numbing effect on both women, as they lay on their big red beach towel. Neither one has spoken in a while, both of them far away with their thoughts.

They had decided to spend their Sunday at the beach near their house and ‘just relax’, as Rose had said to Luisa that morning when they packed their stuff. She knows Luisa has barely slept the last three nights, but Rose has no idea what she could do or say to take her fears away. Hell, she doesn’t even know what it is going to be like herself. So she remains lying silently beside the woman she loves so much and is glad that her dark sunglasses hide her eyes staring into the blue sky, thinking about an unknown future.

Why does everything about her always end up hurting Luisa?

Luisa has been stuck at the same page of her book for about an hour now. Her brain is going crazy thinking about what this diagnosis would mean for the two of them. She had known something was off the day Rose had come back from her run looking like she’d seen a ghost. Except Rose was the last person to believe in ghosts. This wasn’t an illusion. Rose is sick. Pretty damn sick.

And Luisa can’t help think that Rose is not entirely aware of how bad this really is.  
Not that she wants Rose to lose her positive attitude, but Luisa remembers how disgusting chemo could get. She’d been at her brother’s side the whole time he’d battled cancer and the memories of what that poison did to him back then made her stomach twist in the most uncomfortable way. And tomorrow, Rose would get a taste of this poison for the first time.

Luisa wants to yell at the universe, ask how she deserves all this.  
They have been happy. Everything has been great. Finally. Haven’t they been through enough already?

Both of them don’t know how to start the conversation. The air around them is filled with heavy thoughts that weigh down hard on both their hearts.  
“So… are you ready for tomorrow?” Luisa knows it is a stupid question, but she can’t come up with anything else.  
“Yes.” Rose simply says, not bothering to take off her glasses just yet. Maybe this uncomfortable conversation could still be avoided.  
“I just… Rose, you know-” Luisa’s voice breaks under the pressure of the sob that she tries to hold back and Rose sits up with a sigh, pushes her sunglasses back into her hair and her hand on her love’s shoulder. “Lu, Luisa. Hey, stop… stop, it’s alright, don’t cry,” she soothes and wraps her arms around Luisa, who is completely shaking now, starting to stroke her back gently.  
“It’s gonna be really ugly, Rose! I…. I’ve seen how bad chemo is… Rafael, he…” Luisa is interrupted by Rose grabbing her by the shoulders, forcing her to look her in the eyes.  
“First of all, don’t remind me I have anything in common with your asshole brother,,” Rose mumbles. “And second… Luisa, we can’t change it. We’ll have to wait and see how it goes. I know that you probably know a lot more about the whole cancer topic than I do but all I need to know is that I can beat leukemia’s ass! I can win this,” Rose assures her, voice as strong and determined as always.  
“You better,” Luisa whispers through tears and buries her face in the redhead’s neck.

-

2:30.  
It is 2:30 and Rose has almost given up on ever falling asleep again.  
She had woken up with yet another nosebleed and managed to make it into the bathroom without waking her pregnant love. When the nosebleed had finally stopped, she had slid back into bed quietly and that’s where she’s lying now, thinking about what Luisa had said at the beach. How chemo is ‘really ugly’. The doctor had also told her stuff about side effects of chemotherapy, how she might be sick a lot, lose her hair, and how she would feel very weak, amongst other things…  
She doesn’t care. This stuff will kill her cancer, so it was okay. She isn’t scared.

Well… she will have to endure being pricked by more needles yet again.  
Stupid.  
Rose shakes her head in the dark over her own ridiculous fear. Needles were not scary.  
“I’m not scared of needles.”  
Murmuring it to herself in the dark makes her believe it. Almost at least.

-

Luisa taps her fingers nervously on the armrest of her chair. They’d been at the hospital for more than 3 hours by now. At least five doctors and nurses had talked to them about the procedure already, but the fact that said procedure still hasn’t started, doesn’t exactly calm her nerves. Apparently Rose needed to get a CVC; a central venous catheter.  
Luisa is not looking forward to that and she imagines poor Rose isn’t either.

The redhead is lying more or less ready on the hospital bed in the infusion suite looking pale and agitated, when a blonde woman in her fifties, whose name tag says ‘Doctor Jandl’ and a nurse enter the room.  
Luisa puts on a smile. She has to be the strong one today. For Rose.  
Barely a minute later the area under Rose’s right collar bone is cleaned with antiseptics and therefore ready for the incision to come.

Everything is going pretty fast and that makes Luisa feel a little better.  
“Okay, so this will sting, but I need you to stay really calm and not move. You’re gonna get a local anesthesia now, like we told you earlier, and then I’ll set up your port,” the friendly doctor explains, gloved hands holding the needle that Rose finds herself currently staring at, blue eyes widened with fear she’s trying to hide. Her plan to just ignore her phobia doesn’t seem to work.  
“Rose, come on, look at me babe!” Luisa turns Rose’s head gently so she has to look at her, away from the needle.  
“Do I have to get this port thing? Lu I don’t want it, I don’t want a needle stuck in my chest permanently! I… I can get a new line put in for every infusion, I don’t care but I don’t want that to stay in my chest!” Rose whispers to Luisa, eyes still wide open.  
The doctor overhears and stops to calm her patient. “If we were to put up a new IV into your veins for every round of chemo, we’d risk scarring and bursting your veins. This way, it’ll only hurt once too, plus we get better results when chemo is given over a CVC. Once the catheter is in, the needle will come out, you know; just the tube will stay in and you won’t even feel it.”  
“It’ll be okay, Rose. In a few days you’ll be used to it,” Luisa smiles and presses a quick kiss to Rose’s temple, hoping it will help her to calm down a little.

“Ready when you are,” the doctor announces with her warm voice, smiling down reassuringly at the redhead, who is blushing at being treated like a scared kid and just nods quickly, before she turns her head back to Luisa, who takes her left hand and squeezes it.  
When the needle pierces Rose’s skin, her fingers dig into Luisa’s hand so hard it hurts and a pained whimper escapes her mouth.

“All done! Great job!” the doctor says after successfully inserting the tubes and securing them. She pats a slightly hazy Rose on the shoulder, making her blush yet again. “I’ll flush your port with a saline solution now and then we can start with the chemo.”

About halfway through the four hour infusion Rose’s pulse calms down again and she loosens her tight grip on Luisa’s hand. She still feels relatively good actually; her chest is a little sore and she feels a bit sleepy maybe, but okay.  
Suddenly Luisa’s warm brown eyes light up and she grabs Rose’s hand tighter again, putting it on her stomach.  
“Can you feel her?” She asks, her voice barely a whisper.  
Rose is stunned. Beneath her hand she can feel Luisa’s bump flutter. “Is she… is she kicking?” she whispers in awe.  
“Yes! Mia probably wants to tell you, you’re being brave too,” Luisa smiles while tears make their way down her cheeks. After the few tiny kicks Mia has performed, Rose isn’t taking her hand off Luisa’s stomach anymore for the rest of the chemo session. It seems to have a really calming effect on her, because for the remaining two hours she even manages to close her eyes for a while.

“Seems like you’re all done with your first infusion!”  
The doctor’s voice from earlier makes Rose open her eyes again. “I am going to flush your catheter once again now and close it. It will need to be flushed once a day, also after a completed cycle. I’m going to give you some of these waterproof covers for your CVC too, so you can take a shower or a bath once you’re home. Miss Alver, I presume due to your medical experience you’ll know how to flush a port and properly apply these? Great! So, right now I need you to stay here for another thirty minutes to make sure you are not showing any symptoms and then you’re good to go. For the rest of the day it’s very important for you to take it easy. Rest and drink lots of fluids. You should also eat a little even if you don’t feel like it. A nurse will drop by to see if you’re doing okay in half an hour. I’ll see you two tomorrow!”

-

“Luisa, honestly, I feel fine.”  
Luisa isn’t convinced, but she has to admit, Rose did kind of look fine. She didn’t have a fever, she hadn’t puked (yet), she was awake, and wasn’t overly drowsy… She shakes her head again. “You need to rest,” she argues.  
“Honey,” Rose exclaims, rolling her eyes. “I can help you make dinner, I want to help you make dinner, I’m hungry. And I don’t want to be alone…” she pouts, and Luisa softens, as Rose knew she would.  
“Okay,” she starts. “But, if you start to feel weak, or sick, or anything, you go lay down in the living room and I’ll finish dinner. Deal?”  
Rose smiles. “I’ll take it,” she agrees. 

Rose couldn’t help but notice how Luisa's eyes darted from the pot on the stove over to her every minute or so.  
“Alright, I can’t do anything when you’re watching me like that,” Rose eventually bursts. “I promise, Lu. Stop worrying about me. It was just chemotherapy, I’m not… broken, or disabled, or gravely ill, yet… so just give it a rest, okay? Please.”  
“Sorry,” Luisa mumbles after a moment. “I’ll try to stop.”  
“Thank you,” Rose nods.  
“It’s just–” Luisa interrupts, “You look a little green. That’s all. Are you sure you’re okay?”  
“Admittedly, I could be better,” Rose answers, “But don’t worry. It’s fine. I think it’s the smell of the sauce…”  
Luisa nods. “Sit down, over there,” she suggests.  
Rose shakes her head. “Don’t worry,” she tries.

She can’t fake it for much longer though, as she darts for the bathroom and barely makes it to throw up into the toilet. Luisa hovers outside the bathroom until she can hear she’s done, then she peeks her head in wordlessly.  
Rose groans. “It’s fine,” she stresses. “Nothing unexpected. It’s not that bad.”  
Luisa smiles at how optimistic her love’s trying to be. She wonders how long it’ll last, but she’s grateful for it now. It gives her strength too.  
“Okay,” she agrees simply. “It’s okay, we’ll just deal with it.”

-

Luisa has been watching Rose sleep for a while already. She always loved it, when she woke up before her lover (that wasn’t very often) and got to watch how relaxed Rose’s pretty face seemed.

Luisa had managed to get some food into Rose too last night after her nausea had ebbed off again. Afterwards, Rose had insisted on working a little on her laptop. She had reluctantly told the museum director on friday that she was sick and would start chemotherapy on Monday but would continue working whenever she could. She was not willing to let this stupid cancer get in her way.

At half past ten Luisa had dragged a pouty Rose, who protested that she was not tired yet, upstairs, forced her to put on her PJs and drink a huge cup of tea in bed.  
“I don’t like tea Luisa.”  
“And you’ll drink it anyways, darling! It’s really good for your sore stomach, believe me. You better get used to it because I’ll make you drink gallons of this stuff now,” Luisa had said and pressed a kiss to the pouty face looking back at her.

“Morning,” a raspy voice disturbs Luisa in her pondering. She also loves how hoarse Rose’s voice always sounds right after waking up.  
“Morning babe… how are you feeling? Did you sleep well?” Luisa asks and strokes a stray curl off Rose’s forehead.  
Rose yawns and stretches her arms before answering. “I did sleep well, yes. How about you two?”  
Luisa smiles at that and leans over to kiss the remaining sleepiness away from the redhead’s face.  
“Mia and I slept well too…. what do you say about a nice shower now?”

Luisa comes into the bathroom and finds her love’s pajamas already crumbled on the floor.  
In the mirror she sees Rose staring at her naked self, at the catheter in her chest to be more precise.  
“It looks disgusting.”  
“Does it hurt…?” Luisa asks while she gently turns Rose away from the mirror to have a look at it herself.  
“No. But I still don’t like it,” Rose frowns and reaches her hand up to touch it.  
Luisa stops her midway and gives her a soft kiss on her freckled hand. “Just don’t look at it then. And, more importantly, don’t play around with it.”

A few moments later she has successfully applied one of the waterproof dressings to Rose’s chest and gets rid of her own pajamas. The hot water feels more than good on both womens’ bodies, it seems to wash off their worries; some of them, only temporarily.  
Rose has slung her arms around Luisa’s baby bump and busies herself peppering kisses all over the brunette’s neck and shoulders. Turning around in the taller woman’s arms Luisa puts her hands on Rose’s hips and captures her lips in a longing kiss that quickly deepens.

“I love you. You’re so beautiful,” Rose whispers into Luisa’s ear.  
Luisa opens her eyes to look into Rose’s. Rose looks happy, happier than Luisa had ever seen her back then; back then when they had still been a secret. Now, that time seems so far away, all the bad things almost forgotten.

Rose is all hers now, and she is all Rose’s, still.  
“I love you too. More than ever,” she answers.

-

About two hours later, Rose and Luisa are back in the same infusion suite as the previous day, Rose’s blood test had been done already and now they were waiting for the doctor to show up again.

“Good morning, ready for day two? How did you feel yesterday Rose?” the blonde woman greets them as she enters the room.  
The doctor's bright smile takes a good amount of Luisa’s nervousness away and she smiles back waiting for Rose to answer.  
“I felt okay. Nothing we weren’t prepared for happened.” the redhead informs shortly and grabs Luisa’s hand tighter.  
“She was sick about three hours after we got home,” Luisa continues, when she realizes Rose isn’t going to give any more details away. “She lay down afterwards and I made her drink a lot, and when she got better again, she even had some dinner.”  
“Okay… I’ll prescribe you some anti-nausea meds today. Please keep me informed about your condition, no detail is too small,” Dr. Jandl says, writing down something on Rose’s chart.

Today Rose stubbornly insists on staying in the chair instead of the bed while getting her infusion, and when the doctor tells her again that she would be so much more comfortable if she showed up in sweatpants instead of skinny jeans she just grins.  
Luisa rolls her eyes. “This woman actually does not own any, doc. And mine would look like shorts on her. We’ll get some, though.”  
“We will?” Rose asks, not the most amused at the idea.  
“We will,” Luisa agrees with a smile and presses a kiss into the redhead’s cheek. 

Once the doctor has left, Luisa pushes her chair as close to Rose’s as she can and makes herself comfortable.  
“So… it’s about time we should start thinking about what we want our little bug’s room to look like, right?” Rose asks, grabbing her laptop from her bag and places it in her lap.  
“Sure…” Luisa responds, a grin slowly spreading across her face. “I hadn’t really thought of it yet, honestly, it’s early.”  
“Well, good thing you have me, because I did,” Rose purrs and presses a quick kiss to Luisa’s cheek.

Luisa can’t help but laugh, when Rose shows her a huge colour palette reaching from deep purple to pastel pink. The redhead seems to enjoy her monologue about which colours she thinks would harmonize best with the one thing they already possess for their little one’s room– an adorable, vintage crib mobile with fluffy pink roses dangling from a golden hoop.

And no, it had not been Rose herself insisting on buying this, but Luisa had found it at a vintage market while Rose had still been serving her prison sentence. She had to buy it back then. She didn’t know why or if she would ever get to use it, but the moment she had seen it she knew she had to own it.

And about half a year ago she had presented it to Rose, accompanied by the question of having a baby together.

The redhead had thought about the baby topic carefully and had asked Luisa tons of questions, mentioned, that she was not sure she would be of any use around a baby and said that she wouldn’t want to be the one to carry the child in her womb.  
“Honestly Luisa, all my closest relatives were kinda messed up, including myself, so I think my genes are better not spread any further,” she chuckled darkly, taking off her glasses after finishing an article about artificial insemination. “And besides, if it would continuously kick my internal organs I would panic and try to kick back, and I’m no professional when it comes to babies, but I’m gonna guess they don’t like being kicked back?”  
“But my genes are so much better right?” Luisa had joked. “But still… wouldn’t you like to see a little curly redhead running around in our garden?” she had asked further, imagining how beautiful Rose’s kids would be. She had always been adoring of red hair and freckles, as rare as they were here in the southern states, and therefore couldn’t have been any happier looking at Rose sitting across from her in that moment, scrunching up her nose adorably.  
“So you want to start stocking up our inventory of sunscreen then, and have two lobster backs to rub with aloe gel in the future? And let’s not forget about how cruel kids can be; once she’s in kindergarten, she’ll come home crying ‘mommy they call me carrot head and say that my freckles are fly shit’. Believe me Luisa, we want a tan little girl with your brown puppy eyes. It’s only an advantage if you are our child’s biological mother, I’m telling you!” And with that, Rose had snorted and dropped the insemination book in Luisa’s lap.

Thinking about all this, Luisa smiles at Rose, who pokes the tip of her tongue out, while looking highly concentrated at baby cribs.  
“So, we should really drive to Ikea next week to have a closer look at all this stuff because I don’t really trust internet pictures,” Rose states, closing her laptop.  
“Then Ikea it is, next week!” Luisa grins through a soft kiss to Rose’s pink lips.  
The woman had changed so much during the past few years and even though she still has to learn quite a few things Luisa knows she would handle being a mom. She is proud of Rose.  
“I love you Rose, and I’m proud of you for being so tough right now.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She’d read on the internet that in a lot of cases, when a cancer patient’s hair starts falling out, is when they first cry. She’d never expected Rose to fall into that statistic. Then again, never in a million years had she expected Rose to fall into the “one million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer each year” statistic either.

She’s getting more used to the needles, she has to admit. Now she was just getting tired of the whole ordeal.  
“It’s your last day for a while,” Luisa reminds her, softly rubbing Rose’s leg in comfort.  
Rose smiles lazily. “I’m glad,” she admits. “Then at least I can go be sick in our own home.”  
Luisa smiles. She moves her hand from Rose’s thigh to her hair. In the back of her mind, she knew it wouldn’t be long before Rose didn’t have her hair anymore. It would mean the chemo was working, and she was getting better, despite her feeling worse.

“Do you mind if I lay down instead of sit here with you, honey?” Rose asks with a yawn.  
“No, no of course I don’t mind,” Luisa obliges, getting up to help Rose into bed. “Are you tired?”  
“Just a little,” Rose nods, her half-shut eyes making ‘a little’ sound like quite the understatement. Fatigue was a side effect of the chemo, really it had been a side effect of her illness, the first, real, noticeable side effect of both.  
“Sleep,” Luisa tells her. “What better to do to pass the time here? I’ll wake you up when it’s time to go home, I promise.”  
“Okay,” Rose agrees, already half-asleep. “I love you,” she mumbles, before drifting off.  
Luisa runs her fingers through her hair one more time before softly pressing a kiss to her temple. “I love you too, sleep well.” 

It would be awhile before they could go home, and as much as Luisa wants to stay and make sure everything is okay with Rose, she is sure everything would be fine if she left for a few minutes and went for a walk. She better get used to this hospital, they’d be here a lot in the coming months. 

And one day, not too long from now, their daughter would be born here, and that might make up for the amount of bad memories they would have of this place. What a funny way things worked out. 

She better get used to the watery coffee off the cart too, though it was far from ideal. Vodka was ideal, to be honest, but this wasn’t the time nor the place. It was never the time or the place, but especially not now. For Rose, but especially for Mia. Hopefully Mia would always be enough for her to think this way. 

Her feet brought her down to the giftshop without much thought. She leafs through magazines and snacks and cards, and then the rack of scarves. They’re lightweight and really soft, Rose would probably like one for when she starts losing her hair; Luisa thought she would, if she were in that position. 

There’s one that’s a light blue with red roses patterned across it. It’s meant to be. Luisa laughs to herself quietly. Man, some days she wondered why she loved Rose and all her self-assurance, but she couldn’t imagine not loving her. Even in times like right now, it could be argued that her heart would hold a lot less pain inside it, if she had just let Rose go, or never had her to begin with. But her heart also never would’ve known this love, and that, to her, wasn’t worth it. 

So, she buys the scarf and puts it in her purse for later, and then goes back to sit by her sleeping love’s bedside. And she wouldn’t change a thing. 

-

Considering how awake and active Mia is in her belly today, Luisa guesses the baby is excited for her future room furniture as well.

“She is your daughter after all, always excited and always a little impatient!” Rose giggles, reaching her right hand over to feel the movement in the brunette’s swollen belly herself.  
“You concentrate on driving, okay? I have a feeling you’ll get to feel our little bug many more times today, she doesn’t seem tired!” Luisa answers.  
She is glad Rose feels relatively good today (hence she had not protested when Rose had planted herself into the driver’s seat) and is fit enough for their shopping trip to Ikea.

Last week after finishing her first round of infusions Rose hadn’t been feeling too great. She had woken up the last couple of mornings feeling dead tired already and had taken ibuprofen like candy. Thanks to the nauseous feeling the chemotherapy caused in her tummy, she had lost her appetite completely and therefore making her eat had been quite a challenge for Luisa.

“Rose. You need to eat something! Your body needs the vitamins and the energy so much!”  
“I will throw up Luisa! I feel sick already, my stomach really can’t deal with food right now!” Rose had protested, refusing to open her mouth for the spoon Luisa wiggled in front of her face.  
“Come on, darling. Just a few bites!” Luisa begged.  
Blue eyes peeked out mischievously under dark lashes. “What do I get if I eat five bites?”  
“Oh, no, we’re not playing games. You have to eat. That’s it. Your reward is that you won’t feel dizzy every time you get up and be able to stay awake longer than two hours in a row.”

In the end Rose had gotten her way, of course.  
Luisa found herself on the couch with an already tired redhead snuggled to her back, drawing random patterns on her baby bump, while they watched Carol for what felt like the hundredth time.  
Just before the end of the movie the freckled hand on her belly had twitched a few times before Luisa could feel Rose’s breath in an even rhythm on her neck. At least she had kept dinner down.

She had watched Rose sleep for an hour, before gingerly waking her with a kiss to her forehead and guided her up the stairs to their bedroom. Rose had managed to put on her pajamas and brush her teeth, even though Luisa was sure she was not entirely awake. Her blue eyes were still half closed, her hair stood off of her head in weird angles and her sore lips had taken on the same color as her curls. Luisa couldn’t help but think that tired baby Rose must have looked about as adorable, with the little difference that present day Rose didn’t suck her thumb anymore.

Pushing aside her pregnancy hormone corrupted thoughts, she had grabbed the little tube of ointment they had gotten from the doctor after the third day of chemo. While Luisa was still dabbing cream on her lips, Rose had drifted off to sleep again.

-

“There’s an empty parking spot close to the entrance, babe!” Luisa yells, pointing at it wildly.  
Once they enter the elevator, Rose is glad to be able to lean against the walls. She already fears it was an exceptionally bad idea to refuse breakfast today.

About two hours later, their cart is filled with five new pillows, a dozen of scented candles, a pink and green baby blanket, a plush carrot with, according to Luisa, an adorable face, and way too many picture frames yet to be filled. Luisa notices that Rose is pretty quiet while pushing the shopping cart behind her but her own excitement prevents her from thinking about what the reason could be.  
“Okay, so I’d suggest we finally have a look at the children’s bedroom section and then we have to figure out a way how we’ll fit all this stuff in the trunk of our car…” Luisa ponders, already making her way to the elevator.  
“Lu?” Rose says quietly, her voice barely more than a whisper.  
“We might have to go twice I think… We’ll never fit the crib and a drawer in at once…” the brunette continues, obviously not picking up on the tone in Rose’s voice.  
“Luisa!”  
Turning around, Luisa notices Rose hasn’t followed her but is still standing in front of the wall with all the displayed frames. Her face is ghostly white and the way her hands are clutching to the cart, it isn’t hard to guess something is wrong.  
“Everything’s… black… I-I…” Rose stammers.  
Luisa sprints back to the redhead just in time to catch her and ease her down on the cold linoleum floor.  
“Okay, okay Rose, lay down. It’s alright, I got you.” Luisa whispers, pushing one of the pillows under Rose’s head and grabbing her love’s legs to elevate them. “It’s cause you didn’t eat. Your blood sugar level dropped down way too low. Just lie still for a moment, you’ll feel better soon.”

Rose has trouble blinking away the black spots that currently intrude her vision but Luisa is right, after about two minutes her head seems to have all the blood back in it.  
“I think I’m okay again, I can get up, Luisa. We can go to the baby section now?” Rose murmurs, already trying to sit up. She isn’t keen on laying on the dirty Ikea floor for another minute, that’s way too embarrassing.  
“Hey, easy, babe! First thing we’re going to do now is get you to the restaurant to have some food,” Luisa concludes. “Besides, Mia and I are in need of a break too… And I don’t mind a little snack either,” she adds.

Rose has forced down some soup and vegetables and now she watches Luisa munch on her chocolate cake, while she herself finishes her juice. The redhead has never been a big fan of any kind of juice but since she started with chemotherapy water tasted strange; metallic, somehow. Luisa had googled this right away and read that was a common side effect that water (and meat) started tasting different to someone who was receiving chemo. After finding that out, Luisa had told Rose that juice would be better for her anyways right now; the more vitamins the better. Even the sugar would be gladly welcomed by Rose’s body. In the past couple days she’d started noticing that her jeans were becoming looser and looser.

“You want a bite?” a voice with it’s mouth full asks, disturbing her in her pondering. “It’s really good, you should try!”  
“No thanks,” Rose answers, feeling sick alone from watching Luisa stuff the gooey cake into her mouth.  
“Are you okay? You have to tell me if you feel bad, Rose. We have to drive home or to the hospital even… “ Luisa asks with a concerned voice, putting her fork down to grab Rose’s freckled hand on the table.  
“It’s alright. I feel good enough to go and have a look at the bedroom stuff now. I just don’t want to overwhelm my stomach with… that,” Rose eases and looks at the few crumbs Luisa has left on the plate.

-

“We could start painting the walls in our bug’s bedroom now!” Rose cheers excitedly, picking up the paint cans that had been delivered to their front steps.  
“Someone’s got a lot of energy suddenly,” Luisa smiles, unlocking the door. She puts her arms around Rose’s narrow waist, hugs her tightly and gives her a soft kiss. “I’m glad you finally feel better again, darling. It’ll get a bit better with every day now, as long as you keep eating and drinking. First week after chemo just sucks, but I think we’re handling it really well.”

After they stored all the boxes away in the garage for now, Luisa tells Rose to sit down in the living room for a bit, while she prepares a quick dinner. When she enters the living room again, she finds Rose fast asleep on the couch, with her glasses still on and an unfinished book about child psychology almost slipping from her hands.  
“I guess we’ll paint the room another day,” Luisa whispers to herself, carefully grabbing the book. A smile spreads across her face, when she sees the countless page markers peeking out of the heavy thing. It made her smile how hard Rose was trying, even if she felt like she didn’t need to try that hard at all. She’d be a great mom anyways.

-

Luisa sits on the floor, reading the paint can before pouring it out into the tray.  
“Of course, rose pink,” she shakes her head. “Why did I expect any less from you?”  
Rose smiles, not the least bit guilty. “It is a beautiful colour,” she points out.  
“It is,” Luisa settles. “A little traditional for my liking, but beautiful.”  
Rose giggles. “Should we have picked grey or something instead? Is that less traditional?”  
Luisa scoffs, but she smiles. “Please, we want our baby to feel warm and calm in her room. If we painted it grey she’d feel like she lived inside a rain cloud.”  
Rose giggles again. She loves Luisa's sense of humour, and her kooky comparisons and awkward analogies. “Let me pour the paint,” she says next, “You shouldn’t be lifting.”  
“Rose, I’m still okay to lift,” Luisa laughs. “Believe me, I used to be a doctor.”  
“I’m just concerned,” Rose defends. “You’ve spent so much time being concerned about me lately, every now and then I get to be concerned about you too, okay?”  
Luisa can’t help but smile. “Yeah, okay,” she agrees. 

It’s peaceful in here. The sun streams in through the curtainless windows and into the tray filled with pink paint and the blue tarp protecting the carpet from splatter. Sun hits Rose’s shoulders, covered by nothing but a thin tank top strap, exposing her constellations of freckles, a map Luisa is ever so accustomed to. Now, with the onset of her leukemia, there are some new red and purple speckles as well. Luisa knows what those are too. They looked painful, but they didn’t hurt, she has to remind herself of that. Rose probably doesn't even know they are there. 

It is good, it is just a good day. For just a few moments there, they are just a happy couple expecting a baby, and that is all. 

Rose interrupts Luisa’s thoughts, pressing a cold, paint-covered palm against her face.  
Luisa doesn’t even want to open her eyes as she grimaces at the cold, thick liquid on her face.  
“What was that for?!” she squeals.  
When she opens her eyes, she can see Rose grinning ear to ear. “You were spacing out, I reeled you back in,” Rose purrs. “That’s all.”  
Luisa shakes her head, but she smiles.  
It’s just a good day. 

-

The next day however, is not a good day.

In the morning darkness, not so much from time but from dreary, Florida summer storms, Rose left Luisa in bed and slipped out to take a shower. Lu looked so sound, limbs sprawled out, her hair fanned across her pillow, the traces of a pink painted handprint still on her face. Their house is far from cold, but lately Rose is always cold. She turns the shower hotter until steam spews out, and then it is perfect. For a few minutes. 

She hums softly, while massaging shampoo into her hair and letting her mind wander, enjoying the heat and the overall serenity the shower always brought over her. Of course, she kinda wished Luisa was in here with her, but then she remembers the image of her love still asleep in bed, and she’s okay with being alone. 

Her peace is abruptly interrupted, when she feels something strange in her hands. She pulls her hands away from her head to get a look, and that’s when she knows exactly what has happened, before she can even look down. When she does look down at her hands, she sees the thick strands of her hair that have stuck to them. She isn’t sure why it affects her at all, to be honest, considering not much does… but it does. 

Outside, in their bedroom, Luisa’s drifted awake. At first she panics, reaching for Rose beside her and not feeling her, but then she hears the shower and she relaxes. And then, she hears something else– it almost sounded like someone was crying. Like Rose was crying. 

She’d never seen Rose cry, in all the time she’s known her, so she knows something’s very wrong. She doesn’t think twice before getting under the shower with her, her pajama top and her undies still on. “Hey, hey, baby what’s wrong?”  
Rose isn’t sure how to answer that, she isn’t sure what’s going on. Why is she crying? Why is there a chunk of hair in her hand? Why are they here, how did they get here?  
Luisa shifts her gaze from Rose’s face to her outstretched palm, the same one that had stamped paint on her face less than 24 hours ago, and the ugly, wet clump of deep red hair stuck to it. She takes a deep and controlled breath. She’d read on the internet that in a lot of cases, when a cancer patient’s hair starts falling out, is when they first cry. She’d never expected Rose to fall into that statistic. Then again, never in a million years had she expected Rose to fall into the “one million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer each year” statistic either.

“It’s okay,” Luisa says, “We can handle this, it’s okay.”  
Rose nods. “I- I don’t know why I’m c-crying,” she stumbles. “I d-don’t, I don’t cry.”  
“It’s okay,” Luisa comforts her, her hands on her tall love’s shoulders.  
“I need to rinse my hair, still,” Rose tells her. “That’s just going to make- that’s just gonna make more of it come out…”  
Luisa moves one of her hands to Rose’s cheek. “It’s going to fall out anyways, babe,” she says quietly, a little sadly. “Let me wash your hair for you,” she suggests.  
Rose doesn’t argue, she just nods, and puts the hairball in her hand on the edge of the shower, to go in the garbage when they’re out. 

Luisa's able to add a few more clumps to the pile by the time she’s done rinsing the shampoo, and then the conditioner, from Rose’s hair. “You can’t even tell,” she reassures her.  
“My hair’s still soaking wet, of course you can’t tell,” Rose argues, her pout still evident in her voice.  
It might be true, but Luisa pretends it isn’t as she kisses Rose’s cheek, leaning in from behind her. “You can’t tell,” she repeats. “If it makes you feel really self-conscious, I can help you shave it, if that’s what you want?” she suggests.  
Rose shakes her head, averting her eyes. “No, not yet,” she says.  
“Okay,” Luisa nods, looking for Rose’s eyes, that seem to be scanning the floor. “Hey, I can shave my head too! We’ll be matching, it’ll be fun.”  
That draws a small, little chuckle out of Rose, as she turns to face Luisa and run her fingers in her wet, tangly hair. “You better not,” she warns her.  
“Why not?” Luisa asks in return, a smile spreading across her face. “I would look super badass bald.”  
“That’s true,” Rose smiles, “but I love your hair and it’d be a shame if you got rid of it all.”  
Luisa shrugs lightly. “Okay,” she settles and presses a kiss into Rose’s cheek. “I love you,” she tells her. “I don’t care what you look like; if you have bald patches, or any hair at all. I love you for you.”  
Rose smiles, and almost tears up again. “I love you too,” she answers simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... "I didn't fall in love with your hair  
>  Hair or gone girl I really don't care  
> The hearts that's inside is why I stopped and stared  
> I swear I didn't fall in love with your hair"


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, peeps...  
> New Chapter, new challenges for these two to overcome...
> 
> Leave a comment and tell us what you think!  
> (Honestly we live on your comments!)

During the next couple of days, Rose drives to the museum a few times to help set the finishing touches for the exhibition. She’d had a lot of fun doing this, she really did. And she’s a little sad that it’ll be over now. She’s caught deep down in her thoughts while watching the museum personnel arranging the paintings all around the exhibition room.

Sometimes she wonders what her life could be like; had she found a way out of the madness sooner. She definitely knows she would have enjoyed a job that involves art, and she’d most likely be good at it too. She had always been great at stuff she really wanted. Rose was someone who had never had any trouble getting what she wanted with a good amount of determination and perfectionism.

And that’s what makes her current situation even more frustrating.  
She can’t do anything. She could not prevent this with a perfect plan, or by blackmailing someone, or worse. Losing the first few strands of her hair had made the whole cancer thing real for her. She always had trouble understanding consequences, but now this was catching up to her. And soon it wouldn’t be enough to just look into the mirror and tell herself that she’s fine, because she isn’t and it would be pretty damn visible.

Rose still feels ashamed for crying in the shower. She isn’t a wimp. She never cries. Her past has taught her that crying makes you weak and she is not willing to give in to this and she will not allow herself to be weak again, for Luisa and for their daughter.  
Her desperation has long turned into anger. She’s pissed with her own body to betray her like this.

Absentmindedly playing with a strand of her hair, she stares at the huge oil painting in front of her, currently being hung in the wanted position. Rose catches herself looking at the painted girl’s beautiful hair with a slight fling of envy. She let her own hair air dry this morning because her wild curls hide the few bald patches quite well, for a little while longer at least. Every time she runs a brush through her hair now she is somewhat frightened to look at it afterwards. 

Why was chemotherapy such a bitch and made people lose their hair? Her hair is great! She’s only been back to her natural red for two years by now, it had always been her most dramatic and attention-catching colour and therefore Rose loves her luscious locks so much. What she does not admit is that the red is one thing that remind her of a time when everything was still okay. Admittedly, her hair has gone through tons of style changes over the years, but she is not keen on trying out the cancer style.

Her pride is finally getting in her way. Rose always knew it would one day.  
But I have Luisa. I finally have Luisa and I will not let anything mess us up again, she thinks.

-

Time has passed way too fast and the twenty-five day break between chemo sessions is over.  
They have become used to their daily routine by now: Rose taking her pills on time; Luisa flushing her port every morning, and giving her shots in her upper arm twice a day; Rose trying every imaginable thing to prevent Luisa from giving her those shots, without success until now.  
Tomorrow they will be back at the hospital for Rose's second cycle of chemo.  
Luisa strokes her fingers over Rose's head resting on her shoulder. This morning the redhead had woken up with a fever and they had decided to spend the day in their pajamas. Not that it was hard on a day like this. Another storm had Florida in its grip and the constant drumming of the raindrops on the windows makes it a perfect day to be spent in bed.

"Did I fall asleep again?" Rose asks with her sleepy voice.  
"Yeah," comes the answer followed by a soft kiss to her warm forehead, "But what better thing to do today? Stay here on the couch a little longer babe, I'll make us tea and we could watch a movie, maybe?"

When Luisa enters the living room again, balancing two steaming cups of peppermint tea and some cookies on a tray, she finds the couch abandoned. Her eyes find her love standing by the window watching the rain pelt down.  
"You'll get cold Rose," she tries, carefully putting a blanket around the tall woman's shoulders. Only now Luisa sees yet another thick lock of red hair in Rose's pale hand. Without much more thought she wraps her arms around her and starts rubbing her back.

"I deserve it."  
"You deserve what?" Slowly the brunette looks into Rose's eyes, a bit scared to find tears rolling down her cheeks again. But Rose's expression is stone cold, emotionless as Luisa has seen it many times before.  
"I deserve to have leukemia. Karma really is a thing, I guess. I always thought I had bad blood and now know I’m right, I literally have cancer in my blood." The cold measured tone of her voice makes Luisa shiver.  
"No one deserves to have cancer. Cancer doesn't pick people for what they’ve done in their life, it… it just happens. Rose, you're gonna beat this, I know it. I'm here for you, okay? You're not alone," Luisa says trying to keep her voice steady. This might not tear Rose apart right now, but it is damn close to getting to Luisa. "Hey, come on, stop overthinking. You’re still feverish and we wanted to watch a movie." She takes the strand of hair from Rose's hand and drags her back to the couch without much hesitation coming from her.

"Lu?" She hasn't talked since the movie started, silently pondering while she lay snuggled up in blankets with the most important person(s) of her life.  
"Hmm?"  
"Can we shave my hair off tonight? I think I’m ready, I think it’s time now."

-

An hour later, Rose finds herself sitting on the edge of the bathtub, keeping her eyes trained to the floor, silently watching her fiery locks fall to the cold tiles. 

“Okay, all done,” Luisa says quietly, her voice breaking a little at the end, as she presses a gentle kiss to the pale head in front of her.  
It tickles and sends a shiver down Rose’s spine, the now unprotected skin of her head not yet being used to direct contact.  
Taking a deep breath Rose gets up, facing her love first, before she dares to look at herself in the mirror.  
Luisa takes in the image of her sick lover standing in front of her: Black circles under her piercing blue eyes, her tall and skinny body disappearing in her black silk pajamas.  
“ … you kinda look like Jack Skellington now.”

Rose’s jaw drops just a little and for a brief second pain flickers across her blue eyes– Luisa regrets having said this out loud immediately. But just when she wants to start apologizing, Rose’s mouth curls up into a smile and a moment later she bursts out in laughter.

“Rose, I-I…”  
“Rude, Luisa! So, so rude! How can you say that?” Rose blurts out, still shaking from laughter.  
“I’m sorry!” Luisa presses, but she can’t help being infected by Rose’s giggles.  
“Okay! Okay. I didn’t even look yet,” Rose laughs, finally turning towards the mirror, and then sighing. “…shit, I really do look like a skeleton, actually,” she says, her smile slowly faltering.  
Luisa smiles shyly, “I mean, kind of, but hey, look at me– You are beautiful. You’ll always be beautiful, no matter if your hair is red, or blonde, or black, or blue, or if you have no hair at all. Rose? Are you okay, darling?” she asks. She wants Rose to laugh again. She had always wished that Rose would show more emotion in certain situations, even though she understood that she didn’t know how to regulate her emotions, or lack of, but since seeing her cry Luisa wanted to do anything to not see her like this ever again.

“Yeah, I’m okay… we’ll get used to it, right?” Rose answers slowly, both her arms raised, slender fingers ghosting over her bald head.  
“Yeah we will,” Luisa grins. “And your hair will grow back, Rose,” she says, determination in her voice.

-

The next morning, Rose finds herself frowning, turning away from the closet for just a brief second to look at Luisa, who’d wandered in. “I was going to come wake you up,” she exclaims. “With a kiss, and happy birthday, you know…”  
Luisa smiles and leans in to kiss her cheek. “Thank you, babe. What are you doing rumpling through our hall closet?”  
“I was looking, I used to have a beanie, somewhere,” Rose mutters, still digging through a bin of random extra things they kept in the hall closet, a junk drawer of sorts. “I don’t… I was okay with not wearing anything to cover my head around the house yesterday, but going out in public today… that’s different.”  
“I understand,” Luisa nods, putting a caring hand on Rose’s shoulder. “I may have a solution for this problem.”  
“You know where my beanie is?” Rose asks, her eyes lighting up; her whole face really. Luisa swore that since Rose no longer had hair, her facial expressions seemed magnified– her eyes shone ten times brighter now, her smile spread ten miles wider. She wasn’t sure how it was possible that her girlfriend had gotten more gorgeous, but somehow she really had.  
“Not quite,” Luisa tells her. “Stay right here,” she adds, heading for the kitchen, where her purse is slung on a chair. She was waiting for this moment to give Rose the scarf she’d bought her in the hospital gift shop a few weeks ago now. She’d actually forgotten about it until last night, while Rose laughed at her attempt to fit both the vacuum and herself in the bathtub, cleaning up after they shaved Rose’s head. “I got you something.”  
“It’s your birthday, shouldn’t I be the one getting you a present?” Rose smirks, peeking into the bag anyways.  
“I don’t need anything; we talked about it,” Luisa tells her smugly, “I have you.”

Rose smiles as she looks from her smiling, birthday girl girlfriend, to the soft, pale blue and red patterned fabric mass. “It’s a scarf,” she realizes, taking it out and examining it. She grins. “How did you know roses are my favourite?”  
“Hmm, wild guess,” Luisa rolls her eyes, insinuating a soft kiss.  
“Thank you, darling,” Rose smiles, accepting the kiss. “I’m still sorry we have to spend your special day in the hospital, I feel bad.”  
“Don’t worry,” Luisa reassures her. “Maybe we can go out tonight, if you’re feeling okay. If not, we’ll just pretend I was born next week, it’s fine. I don’t like celebrating my birthday anyways.”  
“But I like celebrating it,” Rose grins, “I like celebrating you.” This time, she’s the one to insinuate the kiss that makes the birthday girl giggle.  
“We have to hustle or we’re gonna be late,” Luisa insists, finally pulling away a few moments later.  
“Geez, you’re getting old and crotchety,” Rose jokes. “Soon you’re gonna be telling the neighbours’ kids to get off our lawn and insisting on going to bed at six, after you watch the news and talk about how lazy the new generation is…”  
“Will you shut up?” Luisa laughs.

\- 

“Are you okay?”  
“Don’t worry about me,” Rose smiles. The drugs always make her a little bit hazy, but happy. “I’m A-okay. Is the ladybug kicking?”  
“She’s a ladybug now?” Luisa laughs. “She’s not, she’s still sleeping.”  
“She’s a night owl, I like it,” Rose exclaims. “And of course she’s a ladybug. She’s both a lady and a bug.”  
It is true. Luisa laughs, “Okay, you’re right.”  
“Ladybug’s gonna have her first night out tonight,” Rose says happily. “For Mama’s birthday.”  
“We don’t have to go if you’re not well,” Luisa reminds her. “We’ll go next week, I’m okay.”  
“You’re not okay, you’re ridiculous,” Rose settles with a faux-shocked expression. “We’re going out tonight and we’re gonna get cake, and hors d'oeuvres, and… sparkling cider…”  
“Okay,” Luisa grins. “How ‘bout a nap first?”  
“With you?” Rose hopes.  
“I don’t know if there’s room for two of us in this bed, but I’ll be here with you the whole time, babe. Close your eyes,” Luisa says quietly, running her fingers along Rose’s scarf, like she would her hair.  
“Will you sing me a lullaby?” Rose teases with a sleepy grin.  
“Honey, you don’t want me singing,” Luisa chuckles. “Night, Rose.”  
“Night Luisa,” Rose smiles, closing her eyes. 

To Luisa's surprise, Rose did wake up with enough energy to go out for dinner. (It wasn’t energy, it was sheer willpower and ignorance, really).  
“Are you ready?” Rose asks, peeking her head into the bedroom.  
“Um, almost,” Luisa frets. “I need to buy maternity clothes, apparently. T-shirts stretch, but dresses don’t.”  
“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” Rose reminds her gently. “Some of my clothes aren’t fitting me right now either. You can wear your sweatpants to dinner.”  
“It’s really tempting,” Luisa smiles, “but, I can find something. I want tonight to be as perfect as it can be.”  
“Tonight will be perfect anyways,” Rose reassures her.  
Rose didn’t even know the half of it. There was one very specific reason Luisa was insisting on not wearing sweatpants tonight. 

But that’s what happens anyways. Ten minutes later, Luisa's trudging down the stairs in black sweatpants and defeat, making Rose chuckle.  
“No?” she asks, just barely hiding her amused grin.  
Luisa shakes her head. “Not even my jeans,” she admits. “Other than the sweats I really did put effort in, I swear.”  
“It’s your birthday, you can wear whatever you want,” Rose tells her. “And you can pick where we go to eat?”  
Luisa smirks, she’s ashamed to even admit this. “Can we go to McDonalds? I’m really craving fries and apple pie–”  
She’s cut off by Rose laughing. “If that’s what you want of course we can,” she agrees.  
“You’re sure?” Luisa asks, “You’re okay with Ladybug’s first night out being at McDonalds?”  
“She won’t remember,” Rose shrugs passively. “But we will.”  
It’s true, they would. Luisa likes knowing something Rose doesn’t, even if it’s only temporarily.

She’d never expected this moment to happen in a McDonald’s; between burgers, fries, and apple pie, while she’s twenty-five weeks pregnant and wearing her best sweatpants, but it is.  
“Rose…” she starts.  
Rose looks up from her french fries, a small smile on her face. “Marry me,” Luisa blurts out, suddenly losing her cool.  
“What?” Rose laughs, not taking her seriously.  
“Marry me,” Luisa responds, more seriously this time. “It’s my birthday, you can’t say no to me,” she tries.  
Rose chuckles. “I-I don’t want to say no to you, darling, I love you and I want to spend the–” she pauses for a moment, struggling with her own wording, “–the rest of my life with you. But marriage? Now?”  
“When things calm down,” Luisa suggests, “and we have a little flower girl… I want to spend the rest of my life with you too. I want this to be official. I don’t want anything getting between us ever again.”  
Rose smiles, and Luisa once again thinks how her smile is bigger than before. “Okay,” she agrees. “I will absolutely marry you, once this storm passes. I love you, and our ladybug, so much.” She slides over to Luisa’s side of their booth and leans in for a salty, ketchup kiss.  
“I didn’t plan to propose wearing sweatpants and eating a Big Mac, by the way,” Luisa notes, in between kisses. “Things just happen sometimes.”  
In between another kiss, Rose grins. “I’m glad this happened,” she says simply.

-

Arm in arm Rose and Luisa walk up to their front door, stomachs filled with greasy McDonald’s food, and, in Rose’s case, a very content feeling of being able to keep the food down, in addition. But Luisa’s birthday isn’t over yet after all…  
“Okay, so I know you said no presents because of all the room furniture and baby stuff we have to buy, but… I simply couldn’t resist!” Rose grins with a mischievous glint in her eyes, gently covering Luisa’s with her hands and leading her into the living room. “Technically it’s furniture anyways.”

Slowly Luisa opens her eyes. Rose has lead her to the corner where the big window front meets the wall on which she has put up all her favourite sketches Rose did over the years. In that very corner in front of Luisa now stands a huge black piano.  
“You told me once that your mother taught you a little before… however, you said you would love to play again and teach the ladybug one day, so, happy birthday again, Lu!” Rose says, blushing a little because of Luisa’s silence.

Stepping forward, Luisa lets her hand glide over the sleek black surface of the noble instrument. It never fails to surprise her how much of the stuff she mentions in their conversations Rose actually remembers.  
“I… It’s so beautiful! Gosh, Rose… “ Luisa turns around, tears filling her brown eyes. “Thank you so much! I love you.” Falling into the taller woman’s arms she almost throws them both to the floor while tears stream down her cheeks.  
“Hey… Hey Lu, why are you crying? I didn’t want to make you cry, much the opposite really…” Rose whispers, while she strokes over the brunette’s hair.  
“I don’t know…” Luisa mumbles, burying her face in Rose’s neck.  
“It’s probably pregnancy hormones, honey… it’s alright, it’s just a piano! The fact that we’re gonna get married is way more exciting!” Rose laughs, pressing a kiss to her love’s wet cheek. “I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, just to let you know; that Jack Skellington joke was already there before Belle and I even started writing the actual story, and we simply couldn't resist putting it actually in there ^^
> 
> Stay tuned for more!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...How did they get here? Where had all their happiness gone?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave us comments, we love to share in your feelings, in your pain or in your happiness (or whatever the opposite of pain may resemble in this case.....) :D

Chapter 6

“Rose! Rose!” Luisa yells, shaking a very sleepy Rose from her dreams. “Oh my god Rose, we overslept! We have to be at the hospital in 20 minutes!”  
Jumping out of bed, Luisa drags the blanket down with her, leaving Rose groaning because of the sudden cold. They had really celebrated Luisa’s birthday in all the best ways last night… it involved not enough sleeping ‘beside’ each other though. Luisa grabs her sweatpants from yesterday and pulls them on, only to find Rose curled up again when she looks back. Without a blanket, but very much asleep.

“Get up, come on!” Luisa exclaims, grabbing Rose’s wrist, dragging her to the edge of the bed. “15 minutes, babe! We have 15 minutes!”  
Luisa’s piercing voice isn’t exactly welcomed by Rose’s ears that already hurt from a headache, neither helpful is the sweatshirt that comes flying into her face mere seconds later. Grumbling, she gets up on shaky legs, pushes her pj’s off and causes Luisa to freeze in her motion, staring at her slender naked body.  
“Oh my god, Rose.” Luisa’s stomach twists as she looks at her lover with a pained expression, covering her mouth with her hand. “Darling, you’ve got bruises everywhere… “  
Looking down at herself, Rose takes in the purple bruises sprinkled over her body from her shoulders down to her ankles. They really did celebrate yesterday…

“They don’t hurt, Lu, I’m fine,” she insists, trying to calm a very upset Luisa. “Honey, we have to hurry and these bruises are still gonna be there later, so let's just ignore them right now, okay?”  
Stepping forward Luisa wraps Rose in a very, very careful hug and kisses an exceptionally painful looking purple bruise beneath the taller woman’s collarbone.  
“It’s because your platelet count is so low right now,” Luisa exclaims, or in that moment, Dr. Alver. “I’m sorry– I love you, babe… you… you really need to get better, okay?”  
Slipping into her fluffy grey sweater Rose nods and puts on a reassuring smile for Luisa. “I love you too!”  
She’s too focused on everything else to pay attention and almost gets her CVC catheter tangled up in the fabric, causing a painful sting to her chest. “Stupid thing,” Rose murmurs to herself while she quickly checks if it is still in place. Another smile crosses her face when she notices which sweatshirt Luisa had picked for her. It’s her old university hoodie; Harvard written in red letters across the grey surface. The brunette had always loved it and stole it frequently.

“Darling, I don’t think we have time to tie the scarf around your head right now,” Luisa hesitates, looking at Rose with apologetic eyes, who’s holding out the blue and red fabric.  
“It’s okay, we can do it once we’re at the hospital,” Rose says, stuffing the scarf in the kangaroo pouch of her sweatshirt.  
Luisa smiles. “If traffic is kind today we might still make it on time!”  
Rose just nods and pulls the hood over her pale head.

-

“Come on, there is definitely enough space for both of us on this bed, Lu!” Rose whines, reaching her arms out dramatically. They had actually managed to get to the hospital on time and Rose had been on chemo for about half an hour already. Her scarf was finally in place on her head and the only thing she wanted now was to snuggle up with Luisa before she drifts off to sleep again.  
“I’m gonna push you out of the bed Rose, Mia is getting so big!” Luisa grins. “And you have enough bruises for now…” she adds quietly.  
“I mean, yeah you do look like you swallowed a balloon, hon, but it’s not like I’m taking up much space. Come on, pretty please?!” Rose begs, looking at Luisa with the biggest, bluest eyes ever.  
“Fine! We can try,” Luisa huffs. She was always unable to resist those eyes in the end.

One more day, and this would all be over again and they could go back to spending quality time together. Rose could not wait.

-

“Alright, 26 weeks, that’s exciting,” the doctor grins, squirting cold, blue gel onto Luisa’s big round belly. “Where’d your belly button go?” she jokes.  
“You tell me, doc,” Luisa laughs. “Mia ate it.”  
Rose laughs at that. “Mia ate it,” she repeats jokingly. She likes that explanation for where her fiancee’s belly button disappeared to.  
The OB laughs with them, waving the transducer over her patient’s bump, gathering a clear image of the baby nestling inside there.  
“How’s our ladybug looking, doc?” Luisa asks, propping herself up on her elbows to see better.  
Rose, almost instinctively, absentmindedly runs her fingers in the lengths of Luisa’s hair while the doctor talks to them. “Everything looks swell with the ladybug,” she answers. “She appears to be the size she should be, and she’s facing the right way… Is she kicking, Mom?”  
Luisa feels warmth settling in her stomach. She really likes being called mom. “She’s kicking,” she confirms with a big smile.  
“Well, her patterns should switch to kicking at night now, and resting a little more during the day,” the doctor tells them. “She’s developing the nerves in her ears this week, which means something interesting.”  
“She can hear us,” Luisa nods, finishing the sentence, “Really well.”  
The doctor chuckles, “I forget you know this stuff, Dr. Alver.”  
“Being called Mom is ten times better than being called Dr. Alver,” Luisa smiles. Rose smiles too, just as smitten with the idea of Luisa finally getting to wear the title.  
“Rose,” she says, snapping Rose back into reality. “Rose, you’re Mom too. We’re gonna have to find two different terms here, so Mia will be able to tell us apart,” she laughs.  
Rose smiles uneasily at the idea of herself having the title of Mom. The idea that a little girl’s going to look up to her and depend on her… she’s come to terms with it before, when they made the decision to try for a baby, but still it spooked her. Especially when it came to calling herself a mother.

“Her name’s Mia?” the doctor asks with a smile, breaking Rose’s intense train of thought.  
“Yeah,” Luisa grins. “We just have to pick a middle name now, her first name was the easy part.”  
The doctor smiles again politely, Luisa’s ever so used to that polite patient smile. “Do you guys wanna hear her heartbeat?”  
“Yes!” both women exclaim at the same time, a wide smile spreading across Rose’s face.  
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a negative response to that one,” the doctor says in response, reaching for the doppler. “And I’ll print you both pictures, of course.”

After a little time spent listening to Mia’s strong, little heart, the activities become increasingly less fun– first blood pressure, then screenings, and then blood tests. Rose has had enough with needles to last her a lifetime at this point, even when the needles aren’t hers.  
“Rose, I’m fine,” Luisa reminds her, rolling her eyes but squeezing Rose’s hand while the doctor draws her blood. “Don’t look there, look at me, I’m prettier.”  
Rose smiles. “That’s no contest,” she agrees, but she can’t take her eyes off the slowly filling vial of blood. “Why so much?”  
“That’s only one vial, that’s not a lot,” Luisa tells her. “And it’s cause they need to test it for things. What exactly are you testing for this time?”  
“Gestational diabetes,” the nurse answers. “I’m sure you’re just fine though, just like your baby.” She snaps off the tourniquet and presses a bandaid to the crook of Luisa’s arm. “We’ll see you back here in two weeks! Stay sitting down for the next ten minutes.” She tosses her a juicebox, a custom Luisa’s ever so used to by now, and is out the door. 

Luisa leans into Rose and grins, holding up the ultrasound picture they received. She couldn’t wait for their ladybug to be here.

-

Sighing, Luisa pushes down the handle of their bedroom door and slips in quietly; not that it was necessary. Today she wasn’t sure if Rose was sleeping or if she had really passed out in bed. However it took way more effort to make her wake up than to just open the door.

The first two weeks after the second cycle of Rose’s chemo had been great, actually. The ultrasound had been magical, hearing Mia’s heartbeat and getting the pictures of their rapidly growing ladybug. During the next few days they had put the crib and the drawers into Mia’s room and finally gone shopping for maternity clothes since Luisa was getting tired of only fitting into her sweatpants. They also bought some new, tighter jeans, t-shirts, and two new beanies for Rose, since her old one still hadn't showed up. They’d laughed until their stomachs hurt, together in the way too small dressing rooms. Later, Luisa had way too much fun revealing something she’d secretly bought for Rose.

“I hate you!” Rose exclaimed upon seeing it, her cheeks flushing red.  
“No you don’t! And Halloween is just around the corner babe,” Luisa grinned, holding up the black shirt showing Tim Burton’s notorious skeleton sporting a wide grin.  
“Get off of me with Jack Skellington!” Rose squealed, trying to hold back a grin and twisting away, when Luisa held the shirt next to her face to compare.  
“Well, you’re way cuter, I have to admit that. His empty eyeholes can’t compete with your big blues,” Luisa settled with a very serious voice before wrapping her arms around Rose’s tall but by now too thin body. “But concerning size, you could be his pretty little sister.”  
“Please, just shut up now,” Rose said before pressing her lips to Luisa’s in a loving kiss.

4 days ago, they had decided to take a little time out and spend the day at a nice, remote cove located about half an hour drive away from their house. Luisa had made sure Rose was never in the direct sun since her skin was even more sensitive now, so they managed to enjoy their time in the shade on the beach, under the umbrella.  
However when they started packing up their stuff, Rose had trembled slightly and her lips had taken on a blueish color. Still, she shook her head over Luisa’s worrying, and insisted she didn’t need the towel in the trunk to keep her warm on the drive home. Luisa had soon given up on counting how often Rose sneezed since, her love still promised she would be fine after a hot shower. As expected, she was not fine.

The following morning Rose woke up with a painfully sore throat and the sneezes had turned into nasty, wet coughs. “I can get up! I’m fine,” Rose croaked, her voice already half gone.  
“No, you’re staying in bed, I don’t want to hear any protest, or I’ll pull out the handcuffs, and not for fun,” Luisa smirked, as she took Rose’s temperature. “You have a fever, Rose… we shouldn’t have gone to the beach yesterday. This kind of stuff is way too risky while your immune system is so weak…”

This morning, Luisa had run them a hot bath to make one last attempt to beat this cold after all. Regardless of the mild complaining from Rose, about not wanting to get up but sleep, she had dragged her snifeling, concerningly feverish fiancee out of bed, striped her of her pajamas, put a water repellant cover over her port and helped her into the tub, only to follow close behind. 

Once in the tub, Luisa guided Rose’s body backwards so she was resting against her shoulder (and bump) and started stroking gently up and down her freckle-dusted hips.  
“Are you comfortable, babe?” Luisa asked, pressing a kiss to Rose’s warm pale head. She got a hoarse “yes”, followed by a few coughs as Rose’s hands wandered to her knees, weakly squeezing them, before they slipped back into the foamy water as she fell asleep.  
“I love you,” Luisa whispered and gingerly kissed Rose’s head again, as she stirred in her arms a few times.  
Luisa held her until the water lost its comfortable warmth, and before it got too chilly, she managed to shake Rose awake, dry her off with a towel, put her in fresh pj’s and pack her back into bed.

It’s just after lunchtime now, and Luisa made her way back upstairs, setting the cup of tea on the nightstand and sitting herself down on the edge of the bed. She strokes Rose’s burning, pale cheek with her hand. “Darling… hey, wake up, you need to drink something…” she whispers and brushes her lips over a burning forehead. Every time she had woken her today, Rose seemed a little more disorientated, her blue eyes glassy and unfocused. When her body starts to shake under the pressure of a chesty cough again, Luisa wraps her arms around her fiancee’s feverish body and makes her sit up, while she soothingly strokes her back until the coughing ebbs off.  
“I made you more tea; we have to make sure you get enough fluids, since you’ve slept most of the day,” Luisa says, while she gently strokes over the blue cashmere beanie that covers Rose’s head.  
“Thank you,” Rose slurs sleepily, her voice almost not audible anymore.  
Luisa stays with her until she finishes the whole cup of tea and swallows her medicine. Then she helps Rose lay down again and wraps her up in the blankets to make her warm and cozy. Watching as she drifts off to a deep sleep, Luisa kisses her forehead one more time before getting up.

She is caught up in her thoughts as she descends the stairs. Rose had been so miserable last night. Her rattling breaths had kept Luisa awake, while the coughs roused her from her own sleep again and again. Having to blow her nose many times had caused not only one but two seemingly never-ending nosebleeds as well. Luisa knows that they both won’t hold out another night like this. Rose wouldn’t like it, but she would have to see her doctor at the hospital. Unconsciously she puts her hand on her baby bump, while she glances at the ultrasound picture that they put up on the fridge, drawing strength from their little girl growing in her stomach deciding to wait and see how Rose is later in the afternoon.

Two hours later Luisa is singing along to some song on the radio, while she prepares chicken soup for dinner. She is actually quite proud of herself concerning her newly acquired cooking skills. A few months ago, she wouldn’t touch a pot if Rose didn’t tell her exactly what to do with it. That had changed and Luisa had found out she really enjoyed cooking, even though it had become a bleak necessity in her daily schedule to keep Rose’s struggling body full. She pauses her singing for a moment because she thinks she’s heard something. A tumbling noise coming from the hallway. Turning the volume of the radio down, she listens for a few moments but doesn’t hear anything anymore. She shrugs and continues chopping carrots.

But there is a noise again. Luisa can hear coughing, but it’s way too close to be coming from their bedroom. Putting the pot on the side of the stove she takes off her apron and walks into the hallway to check after all.

She hadn’t imagined it. At the bottom of the stairs she finds Rose.

She has drawn her scrawny knees up to her chest, arms slung around them, her head resting on her knees and her face hidden. It breaks Luisa’s heart to see her body trembling from the racking coughs only interrupted by small, quiet sobs.  
Luisa can feel tears starting to roll down her own cheeks as she walks over to the crouched down figure as if in trance. She kneels down beside the love of her life and wraps her arms around her wordlessly.

How did they get here? Where had all their happiness gone?

-

Luisa doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting on the floor by now, but as Mia starts moving in her belly she reminds her to get herself together. Luisa gingerly grabs Rose’s chin and makes her look up at her.  
“Rose… babe, it’s alright, I’m here,“ her voice still breaks but her tears have stopped and she feels her strength slowly coming back.  
Rose’s eyes search for a random point on the wall behind Luisa, reddened from the hot tears and the cold. She desperately tries to suppress the sobs, holding her breath only to be quickly taken over by another dreadful coughing attack.  
Again, Luisa forces her to look her in the eyes. “Rose, we have to go to hospital. This can’t go on like this…” Luisa whispers calmly, fixing Rose’s beanie before it falls off.

Rose doesn’t want to cry. Not again. She can’t remember the last time she cried before this whole mess started and it seems that because she’s so unaccustomed with it, she doesn’t know how you stop once you’ve started. With every cough it feels like her lungs are bursting, her head is spinning and her whole body hurts from falling down the damned stairs. The control over her life is slipping from her fingers and she can only watch it happen.

She’s so frustrated about her situation, about not being in control anymore she wants to scream and punch something (or someone). But she’s not strong enough to do that right now; her body only capable of cowering on the cool wooden floor in self-defeat, shedding humiliated tears only because fuzzy socks on slippery stairs have turned into a trap.

If the universe had made a plan to break her, she had to congratulate them. This is certainly the best way to achieve just that.

“Rose, can you stand?” Luisa asks and brings Rose’s mind back to her current situation. She nods her head and manages to slowly get up on trembling legs with her love’s help. Risen to her full size, she leans heavily against Luisa’s shoulder. She feels so small. She knows she isn’t, and there had only been a handful of situations in her life when she had felt small before, but never as small as now. Still, whenever she had felt this way she hadn’t had a shoulder to lean on. Even though she seems to slowly drown in the mess her sickness is causing, there is one thing she wouldn’t change, one thing that she couldn’t be more grateful for– Luisa. If there was one thing in her life that Rose would be thankful for until her last breath, it was having met the most beautiful and kind human being in the whole world years back on a fateful 4th of July. Luisa hadn’t changed her life, she had given her a new one.

She didn’t notice Luisa had sat her down on the stairs, holding her in a tight embrace. She keeps stroking her head while she repeats soothing phrases over and over. Rose also hadn't noticed that her crying had stopped. She’s just glad Luisa is here with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "And you'll feel better when you wake up,  
> Taking off your makeup,  
> Sunlight always seems to wash our fears away,  
> And it's always shining somewhere,  
> I just gotta get there, even though it seems like half the world away..."


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It’s a long and hellish story even though Rose still jokingly calls it ‘The greatest love story ever told’..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys get to meet Chris this chapter! We decided Lu and Rose could use a friend, someone on their side, so we implemented Chris. He's a really good one. Let us know how you feel about him.

“I don’t think this is necessary,” Rose sniffles, laying in bed in the emergency room.   
Luisa gives her a hard look. “Rose, enough’s enough. You fell down the stairs because you’re sick and unstable on your feet, not to mention everything else that’s been going on the past few days, we just have to make sure that everything’s okay.”  
“It’s just a cold, and a fall, it is okay,” Rose insists, coughing out her last few words.  
“Unfortunately it’s not just a cold when you have a weak immune system, babe,” Luisa tells her, pressing a soft kiss to her reddened nose. 

“You need another bone marrow biopsy in the morning,” the doctor says, after confirming Rose isn’t injured from her fall, other than a few tender bruises. “It’s too late tonight to start things, but we’ll regroup in the morning.”  
“Are you keeping her overnight?” Luisa asks.   
She must’ve sounded scared, it’s evident in the doctor’s tone when he answers. “For monitoring purposes, yes,” he responds gently. “We’ll give her a room for the night and we’ll check in on her. In the morning, we’ll get to the bottom of what’s been going on.”   
Rose nods, “Okay.” She looks to Luisa, “We can handle that, it’s okay.”  
Luisa nods insecurely. “Yeah, we can handle that,” she agrees, not too confidently.   
“You’ll be allowed back first thing in the morning,” the doctor reassures her. “You can come with us now, help Rose get settled in, but unfortunately visiting hours are coming to an end soon and you’ll have to leave.”   
Rose slides her hand over her fiancee’s in reassurance. “It’s okay, I’ll be okay,” she says.   
“I know you will, when aren’t you?” Luisa sighs. 

Earlier. That’s when she hadn’t been okay. That was so far from okay, it scared them both and they never wanted to think about it again. 

Her room for the night is quiet and sad and green; a single room, to limit the exposure to her immune system. It is bright despite darkness outside, so artificial and stark. Rose knows she’d be fine in here, she’d spent a few years in prison, she was always fine, she just isn’t sure Luisa would be fine out there for the night. But she had Mia to keep her company, and it is hopefully only this one night.   
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Luisa persists, planting a kiss on her cheek as she gets up.  
“Yes, darling,” Rose smiles, her voice starting to sound very hoarse again. “It’s only one night.”  
“I know, it’s just… this whole journey, I’ve been here with you, and you haven’t been alone, and… I don’t want you to be alone,” Luisa admits.  
“I don’t want you to be alone either,” Rose tells her. “It’s only one night, though. We can handle it; we can handle anything.”   
“You’re right,” Luisa smiles. She kisses her feverish love one more time. “I’ll see you in the morning,” she says again.  
Rose rolls her eyes but smiles. “I love you,” she says, as her fiancee walks out.  
“I love you too,” Luisa answers. She really, really does.

She can’t go home yet, she can’t just leave. She finds the family lounge and she sits in there, her head bowed towards her belly, but not letting her tears fall onto her baby. Soon, a man comes and sits beside her.  
“Sweetie, are you alright?” the man asks, carefully laying a hand on hers.   
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine,” Luisa contends. “Just- it’s a lot, you know?”  
“Loving someone with cancer?” the man smiles knowingly. “I know what it’s like, I am so sorry.”  
“Do you… have someone, too?” Luisa asks gently.   
He shakes his head. “Not anymore,” he mutters. “I’m actually a support volunteer here; I’m matched with the spouse of someone currently battling cancer and I just… help them through. I was actually supposed to meet my new match tonight, her fiancee was just admitted…”   
“Who are you looking for, what’s her name?” Luisa asks. She’s pretty certain he’s looking for her…  
“I’m not allowed to say,” the man protests. But after a moment, he caves. “Luisa Alver?”  
“You found her,” Luisa tries to smile. “My fiancee, Rose, she just got admitted tonight. She fell down the stairs, and she’s had a cold for the past few days, we went to the beach and she got a chill, it was stupid…”  
“No, not it’s not stupid,” the man insists. “I’m Chris, by the way, Christopher. It’s nice to meet you,” he stumbles, reaching a hand out. “I’m your support mentor! I was going to try to find you in the morning, but no time like the present I suppose.”

“So, what do you do? As my support mentor?” Luisa asks, slowly warming up to the man.   
“Well,” Chris starts, “I’m just supposed to be here for you, if you have questions, or need advice, or just a friend who’s been here before. My… my fiance, his name was Julius… he passed, a little over four years ago. I’ve been where you currently are, and I hope you don’t ever have to say you are where I currently am. I will try to help you wherever I can, Luisa.”   
Luisa smiles. For real this time. “Okay,” she agrees. “And I’m so sorry, about Julius.”  
“It’s okay,” Chris tells her sincerely. “I can finally talk about him and not cry, so it’s okay,” he laughs. “Do you want to go out for coffee? I know it’s tempting, but you can’t spend the whole night in this lounge, or at least you shouldn’t. I’ve done it before, I don’t recommend it.”   
“That would… actually, that’d be really great,” Luisa tells him. “Coffee it is.”  
“Maybe decaf for you, you want to sleep tonight,” Chris laughs.  
“Let’s face it, I’m not sleeping anyways,” Luisa points out. “I’m 26 weeks pregnant and my fiancee’s admitted overnight for the first time and she has to get a big needle in her bum again tomorrow.”   
“A big needle in her bum,” Chris chuckles. “That is the best way I’ve ever heard a bone marrow biopsy described ever, I love it.” 

-

“So tell me,” Chris starts, placing his tea down and folding his hands on the table. “Tell me about you and Rose.”   
It’s a long and hellish story even though Rose still jokingly calls it ‘The greatest love story ever told’, Luisa thinks to herself, trying not to laugh. “We… met at a gay bar on the 4th of July,” Luisa admits. She isn’t really sure how to continue, given the obstacles that came next, but she tries her best. “I was with someone at the time, and so was she. It was wrong, and we knew that, we gave it a rest for a little while, till we were both almost free. And, you know, things got complicated, as they always do… but we made it. And just when things settled down and we decided we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and have a baby… acute myeloid leukemia.”  
“That’ll really throw a wrench in anything,” Chris agrees.   
“She thinks she deserves it,” Luisa mumbles. “She thinks she deserves having literally bad blood, because she’s done some… bad things.”  
Chris is silent and a little stunned for a moment, but then he speaks. “No matter what she’s done in life, no one deserves this. She doesn’t, and you don’t.”   
“That’s what I told her,” Luisa nods.   
“You have to give your girl a hug for me in the morning, I feel bad and I don’t even know her yet,” Chris responds, pouting a little. “Preferably before the biopsy, cause she’ll just be mad and hurting after, and she probably won’t want to be touched, Julius never did.”  
“She hates that bum needle,” Luisa exclaims. “She has a special hate for needles, but that one in particular.”  
“Everyone hates bum needles,” Chris smiles. “It gets better, though. For both of you, I promise. And you guys have a baby coming to look forward to, that’s really exciting!”  
“That’s the only thing getting us through,” Luisa admits with a laugh.

“I’m getting extra stuff in my match,” Chris laughs. “I was told I was getting a gay, engaged lady nearing 40, you are so much more than that.”   
“It doesn’t bother you, that I’m gay, right?” Luisa asks quickly, just confirming.   
“Well, I’ll have to work with it despite my discomfort…” Chris tells her, with a straight face (the only straight thing about him), even though he’s obviously kidding.   
Luisa’s too tired to take the joke, it’s been a long and stressful day. As soon as he sees her freak out a little, he stops and laughs it off.  
“Sweetie I am kidding,” he reassures her, a hand on her arm. “I love you already, and of course I don’t care that you’re gay, I mean, what kind of a hypocrite would I be if I did?”   
Luisa can’t help but smile and shake her head.  
“You should get home, it’s late,” Chris acknowledges. “You have an early day tomorrow. We’ll meet again soon though, and I wanna meet Rose, okay?”   
“Yeah, sounds good,” Luisa agrees. “Thank you, you really made tonight a lot easier.”  
“That’s my job,” Chris smiles, his eyes crinkling above his tea mug. “I’ll see you soon.”

\- 

“We really need to get your fever down, Rose…” Dr. Jandl concludes after taking Rose’s temperature for the second time today. “Get some rest, you’ve been up all morning. The best way to help your body fight the infection is to give it lots of sleep. I’ll come to check up on you again later,” she finishes, smiling encouragingly at the two women before leaving the room.

When Luisa had come back the morning after Rose had been admitted and asked her doctor how the night had been, she was soon sure she would be spending some more nights alone in their bed that felt too big when lying in there on her own. Later that day however, she was glad that Rose had apparently slept close to nothing during the night because she drifted off during the blood tests and was totally drowsy during her biopsy.

Now on her fourth day of being in the hospital and pumped with antibiotics, Rose was slowly getting better; She managed to stay awake for a few hours in a row already and had promptly decided to be a literal pain in the ass.

“How am I supposed to sleep when really every lying position just hurts like hell!?” Rose complains right after the door closes behind the doctor. Her voice still fails her at every second word, which makes Luisa hold back smiles time and again. It’s a bit hard to take her serious like that, when she herself doesn’t seem to realize that she sounds pretty adorable.  
“Darling, why don’t you try and lay down on your stomach like your doc suggested? How can you know that every position hurts if you’re being stubborn and not trying?” Luisa asks patiently.  
“I don’t need to try! I was never able to sleep while laying on my stomach ever.” Rose pouts just before another throaty cough shakes her and makes her groan in exaggerated pain.  
“Rose, honestly, if you want to get out of the hospital soon, then I’d maybe try a bit more optimism?” Luisa mocks her, thinking of the countless times she had witnessed Rose fall asleep on her stomach, one hand draped across Luisa.   
“I have cancer. They keep on sticking big, painful needles in my ass. I think I’m allowed to be a little bitter, Luisa!” Rose exclaims, making her love burst out in laughter on the chair by her bedside when her voice cracks horribly while saying her name.

Trying to stop laughing Luisa grabs Rose’s hand. “Okay babe, we can’t start with the ‘I have cancer as an excuse for everything’ game now.”   
“It’s not ‘I have cancer’; It’s ‘I have a bruise on my ass from having a monster needle stuck in there to suck my bone out’!” Rose tries to yell, her face blushing in a deep red while her blue eyes seem to spit fire.  
Luisa does her best to not laugh again, when a knock on the door interrupts them from their heated discussion. “That must be Chris, I almost forgot I told him to drop by today!” Luisa smiles excitedly.  
“Who’s Chris?” Rose snorts, pulling her hand away from Luisa’s and crosses her arms.  
“ … I told you? Chris, the support volunteer that I met the night you fell down the stairs and ended up here?” Luisa asks, disappointed by Rose’s disinterest. “He said he’d like to meet you too and since you’re doing a bit better I thought-” she continues, only to be cut off by Rose.  
“I thought my doctor wanted me to rest? No?” Rose snaps.

Grabbing her bag Luisa pushes back the chair causing a sharp noise and heads for the door. “Okay, I’ll leave you to it then,” she bites out angrily without turning around and almost tackles Chris who’s waiting outside the door.  
“Whoa, Luisa, what an energetic greeting,” he laughs, quickly realizing that something’s wrong. “Hey sweetie, are you alright?” he asks gently.  
Swallowing her tears Luisa grabs his hand and pulls him down the hallway.  
“I need coffee. And sugar. And… she’s being a complete idiot today!” Luisa exclaims, tears filling her eyes after all.

Watching as Luisa greedily polishes off her second chocolate muffin Chris carefully asks the immanent question.“So… what happened?”  
“She’s just being Rose I guess. Meaning she can be an egocentric gay asshole sometimes,” Luisa mumbles, still chewing on her last bite.  
“And as far as I know her gay ass is hurting a whole lot right now… Sweetie, you have to try to understand her. She’s probably really pissed off with her situation and is letting her frustration out on you,” Chris replies, taking Luisa’s hand on the table.  
“Oh no, it has nothing to do with Rose being sick - she just really loves being extra and dramatic,” Luisa frets. She feels her stomach tickle, when Mia seems to wake up in there. “Do you know what she did for my birthday? I told her I didn’t need any presents because we have to buy so much stuff for our baby and all the medicine… she bought me a piano. Just because months ago I told her that my mom taught me to play before she died. And she… she said I could try to teach Mia once she’s old enough… she also suggested the name Mia because that was my mom’s name and…” Luisa’s voice finally breaks and she gives in, letting the tears stream down her cheeks again. Those pregnancy hormones were really getting the better of her.  
Chris has gotten up from his chair and steps closer to Luisa, wrapping her in a comforting hug. “And now she’s sick, I get it. I know how you feel, Luisa,” he tries. “I mean I haven’t met her yet, but Rose sounds like a fighter. But even so, there will be days when she’s just tired of fighting, and she’s sad and pissed off but she’s got you and Mia, of course. She might make you angry sometimes and pretend she doesn’t need your help but she really does.”

Walking back through the long hospital corridor Chris still has his arm around Luisa’s shoulders, as Dr. Jandl passes them. When she sees Luisa she stops. “Hey Luisa! I just came from Rose’s room and she’s asking for you. Her fever is higher than ever and she still hasn’t slept… she seemed a little… upset, maybe you should go talk to her?” the woman says, knowing her patient and Luisa quite well by now.

“It’s gonna be alright,” Chris calms her, when the brunette hesitates to open the door to Rose’s room and is close to crying again. “Do you mind if I come in?”  
Luisa nods and smiles at him thankfully, while finally opening the door.  
Rose is sitting up in bed, her freckled hands fumbling with her beanie on the blanket.  
She looks pale as a ghost, her eyes glassier now than when Luisa left and her ears red from aggressively thinking about an apology (and about how she messed it up in the first place).

“Hey Lu…” she starts slowly.  
“The doctor just told us your fever got worse again, Rose. How are you feeling?” Luisa asks, using her own callous doctor’s voice.  
“I’m sorry, Lu… What I said earlier was stupid… I don’t like it when you run off, it used to always be me running off after a fight, I understand why you hate it now,” Rose stumbles and quickly puts the beanie back on her head when she notices Chris. “Hello,” she mumbles, not really looking at him.  
“Hi Rose, nice to meet you,” he says a little nervously, feeling out of place overhearing the two women’s private talk. “I’ll leave you two alone now,” he concludes awkwardly, “Feel better, Rose; if you guys need anything you know how to reach me.” With that, he quietly slips out of the room and leaves them to their talk. 

“How does your hip feel?” Luisa asks, still sounding somewhat distanced, feeling her fiancee’s forehead. “You really are burning… “ she adds a little more gentle.  
“Lu, I’m fine, okay? I’m trying to apologize over here and you’re ignoring me, and… yeah, it still hurts,” Rose admits, smiling a tiny bit in the hope of making Luisa join in.  
“It’s okay, forgiven and forgotten,” Luisa decides, actually smiling now and pressing a big smooch on Rose’s chapped lips. “Since it’s all water under the bridge now, can you calm down and finally catch some sleep? You really need it.” She gestures her love to lay back down in the pillows.   
When Rose is all snuggled up again, she can immediately feel her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier, and she reaches her hand out under the thick blanket cocoon to touch Luisa’s baby bump. “Ladybug sleeping too?” is all she manages to get out before sleep finally takes over.

Luisa feels so much better again, sitting beside the bed, stroking over her love’s warm hand on her belly. They’re both trying their best.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I am coming home with you from this trip, I am coming home with you from the hospital when we have our baby, I am coming home with you for as many days I possibly can, for the rest of my life. Do you hear me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's a hard road honey, and there ain't nobody I'd rather be next to  
> It's a rough ride baby but we're gonna make it together, me and you  
> When you're tired, I'll grab the wheel,  
> And you take over when I'm done  
> Love is taking turns riding shotgun"

Three days later Rose is still hospital bound, but the worst seems to be over. When Luisa silently opens the door, Chris close behind her, she is surprised to find Rose not fast asleep like she left her, but sitting in bed with her laptop in front of her and her sketchbook and drawing supplies, which she’d begged Luisa for a few days ago, scattered across the blanket.

“Am I allowed to join you two for coffee any time soon? I’ve been in withdrawal long enough now,” Rose grins, looking up from her laptop, seemingly in good spirits.  
“We would very much appreciate your company on our coffee dates, Rose!” Chris smiles and walks over to her bed offering her his hand. “I mean, we said hi a few days ago but I’d rather do it the more polite way to make it official,” he adds.  
“Nice to meet you, Christian! Rose, the one who keeps stressing out her poor, pregnant fiancee. I’m guessing you know more about me already than I like,” she chuckles cheekily. She’s pretty chipper today, yet she shakes his hand politely.  
“I have heard almost exclusively good stuff about you, believe it or not. I have to disappoint you though, gorgeous… It’s ‘Christopher’,” Chris adds.  
Rose just stares at him with a mischievous grin on her face.  
“Hey, Rose, behave, okay?” Luisa warns her and steps to the other side of the bed, pressing a quick kiss into her love’s cheek. “What were you looking at?” she asks, peeking into the laptop.  
“Since I’m bored, because I’m not allowed to get up yet and drink coffee with you guys, I have too much time to think. However, I came to the conclusion that you and me didn’t go on a holiday this summer, so…” she answers, while scrolling down on the laptop. “I thought we should use the time we still have when it’s just the two of us and, well… I always wanted to show you Paris and I’d prefer to do that without a screaming toddler,” Rose grins, turning the laptop to Luisa, revealing the most extra and over the top hotel room view of the Eiffel tower mankind has ever seen.

“ … Babe, you can’t go on a plane as long as you’re immunosuppressed… I’m so sorry,” Luisa says gently, stroking over Rose’s hand on the laptop.  
“Who says that? Who says I can’t go on a plane? I’ll be fine!” comes Rose’s snotty reply.  
“Hey gorgeous, look: you caught a horrible cold that’s been keeping you in hospital for over a week already and you’re not even going home yet… All that just because you went to the beach. What do you think would happen if you spent hours on a plane filled with gross recycled air?” Chris tries to explain, looking at the pouty patient with sad eyes. He can remember how frustrating it was for Julius to not be able to rely on his own body.  
“I guess you’ll have to show Paris to me and our ladybug as well in the next few years. She won’t be an annoying toddler; we’ll just stuff her full with croissants and crêpes!” Luisa tries to brighten her love’s mood again.  
“ … yeah, okay. With Mia one day it is, then,” Rose sighs, sounding defeated when she slams her laptop closed, her eyes scanning the blanket.  
“Rose,” Luisa puts a hand on her fiancee’s cheek and looks in her blue eyes. “So listen; maybe we can’t go somewhere on a plane, but we certainly can go on a road trip! I do agree with you, we deserve a little holiday after your next chemo and before the baby madness starts!” she smiles.

-

“Hear me out,” Rose starts, “But I’ve got an idea.”

Luisa puts down her book with a slight pout. Rose on chemo rarely makes sense, she’s loopy from the meds, not to mention tired and stressed. “What’s your idea?” she finally caves.  
Rose just smiles for a second, a little spacey, taking in Luisa’s expression. She’d thought long and hard about bringing this up, it wasn’t something light to her. “I know where we should go on our road trip,” she says. “I want to take you to where I grew up.” 

Luisa smiles, and in turn, so does Rose. “Boston, right?” Luisa confirms.  
Rose nods. She has a stupid love for that city even still. All of her best memories; all of the ones that don’t contain Luisa, at least, took place within those city limits, within view of that harbour and those streets. “You’ve never been, have you?” Rose asks, though she knows the answer because they’ve had this conversation before.  
“I haven’t,” Luisa nods. “Who better to go with than a local expert?” she grins.  
Rose smiles at the term. “So it’s settled, we’ll go when I get out of here? We’ll drive up, stay a few days–”  
“We’ll make sure we know where all the hospitals are along the way in case something happens,” Luisa adds, a warning tone in her voice.  
“Yes, in case something happens with the ladybug,” Rose continues. “Boston’s a medical hub, we’ll be just fine.”  
That’s not what Luisa meant, they both know that. But Luisa won’t argue. “Okay,” she agrees. “When you get out of here, we’re going to Boston.” 

Rose didn’t talk about how she feared it’d be her last time there. She didn’t talk about how she planned to take Luisa to the spot she would want her ashes spread one day. This trip was bittersweet in nature, she didn’t want to add to it, not yet anyways. She wanted Boston to be a happy place for Luisa too. 

-

“Don’t worry, I’ve got everything under control here,” Chris insists. “I will water your one sad plant, I will make sure no one robs the place, and I will dutifully eat all your snacks, I promise.”  
“Don’t eat my ice cream!” Luisa scolds, before pecking his cheek. “You’re a lifesaver.”  
“Oh, go have fun,” Chris tells her, and Rose, who’s sitting behind her on the front steps, tying her shoes. She had to tie Luisa’s while she was down here too, considering it was getting increasingly difficult for Luisa to bend down and interact with her feet.  
“You are great, Christian,” Rose reinforces, getting to her feet.  
“You’re equally great, Rosalie,” Chris grins, smiling at his own clever nickname for the woman he’s really come to befriend over the past few weeks, though she really is Luisa’s complete opposite. “Now go, get on the road, you have a long way around of you.”  
“We’ll bring you back something yummy, if I don’t eat it on the way home,” Luisa grins, getting into the driver’s seat, blowing him a kiss.

“What are you doing, I always drive?” Rose asks.  
“You can’t drive all 7 hours today, Rose,” Luisa argues. “You can take over when I get bored or tired, no big deal. He’s right, we have a long way to go. We gotta hit the road, Jack.”  
Rose rolls her eyes at the nickname, the second one in the past two minutes. She doesn’t appreciate Luisa’s jazz music pun as much as Luisa herself does, it appears.

“If you get hungry or have to pee, just say it,” Luisa adds after a little while.  
“If I get hungry, we have a week’s worth of food packed in the Apocalypse Pack,” Rose reminds her, eyeing the duffel bag in their backseat, their emergency pack. It had food, water, extra clothes for both of them, Rose’s medication, emergency baby clothes, in case of spontaneous preterm labour, and honestly, Rose wasn’t even sure what else (probably the kitchen sink too). “I don’t have much of an appetite right now, though.”  
“Sleep,” Luisa suggests, taking one hand off the wheel to rub Rose’s thigh.  
“I don’t want to, I want to spend time with you,” Rose smiles.  
“You want to be awake for me singing along to the radio dreadfully out of key and pointing out all the weird signs we’re bound to pass?” Luisa chuckles.  
“Of course,” Rose obliges, turning up the radio and nudging for Luisa to sing. “Let me hear it, Louisa Von Trapp.”  
“Did you just call me Louisa Von Trapp?” Luisa asks, unable to contain the laugh that’s bubbled to the surface.  
“You’re not the only one who can make bad pop culture puns,” Rose argues, grinning lazily. “I just wanna hear you singggg,” she whines.  
“I can assure you there’s a very good reason you’ve never heard it before,” Luisa points out, smiling briefly as she sees the “Welcome to Fort Lauderdale” sign blur behind them. Bye, Fort Lauderdale, see you in two weeks. 

-

“Okay, we made it through day one,” Luisa sighs, putting the car in park as they pull into their hotel for the night. “I don’t think we did too bad.”  
“You didn’t let me drive at all,” Rose points out. “You have solely driven for the past seven hours, even when we stopped to get food and use the washroom, which we had previously agreed to switch at.”  
“I was feeling fine, I knew you were tired,” Luisa insists.  
“I wasn’t tired, you’re just a control freak,” Rose argues lightly. “It’s okay, you can admit it. It’s usually really sexy.”  
“Usually?” Luisa scoffs. “It’s always sexy, it’s what I’ve got going for me even when I look like a beached whale.”  
“Mmm, you’re not a beached whale,” Rose contends, leaning in for a kiss, “And if you are, you’re my beached whale.”  
“So, I am a whale?” Luisa confirms, pulling away afterwards.  
“I… you said it, not me,” Rose laughs lightly.  
“Wow,” Luisa laughs, “I see the way it is.”  
“I love you,” Rose grins, going back in for a kiss, hearing Luisa pant a little. “We can’t do this if you’re gonna get out of breath from just kissing.” Rose interrupts with a mocking grin.  
“I’m the one who usually does all the work,” Luisa mumbles, putting her lips back on Rose’s.  
“Then…” Rose cuts her off, pushing her back a little. “Let me top. I’m a little scared you’ll crush me with your bump lately anyways.”  
Luisa laughs a little, nodding. “Alright. Let’s see what we can do.”

Rose adjusts the driver’s seat so that it’s laying flat down, helping Luisa lay down. “Now,” Rose says softly, positioning herself on top. “Let me do the work,” she whispers, her breath on Luisa’s neck. Luisa shivers, as she feels Rose planting small kisses on her neck. “Take your shirt off,” Rose orders, as she slides her own off, helping Luisa out of her pants afterwards. “Damn. How can you be so pregnant and still look so sexy?”  
“You are way sexier than I am,” Luisa replies, pulling Rose’s pants down. Rose shuffles out of them, throwing them to the back of the car.  
“Stop talking, and let me have sex with you, okay?” Rose purrs and Luisa stifles a giggle, as she takes charge.

-

“Rose,” Luisa groans in the morning, “we have to go, we wanted to start 2 hours ago.”  
As Rose opens her eyes and takes in their surroundings, she realizes they’re still in the car. “Did we…? All night…?”  
Luisa nods, “Unfortunately, we did. All night.” She feels Mia wake up with them, her pointy little toes letting her mom know. She takes Rose’s hand and slides it down from her breast to her stomach.  
Rose laughs. “Morning, ladybug,” she smiles and turns her attention back to Luisa. “Will you let me drive today?”  
Luisa nods. “I’m hurting, you have permission to drive, as long as we stop and get coffee very soon. And donuts.”  
“You have yourself a deal,” Rose nods, opening the passenger door and backing out of the car. “This is our great adventure,” she reminds Luisa in a yell.  
Luisa smiles as Rose gets back in on the driver’s side of the car. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” 

Half an hour later, they’re en-route out of Georgia, coffee and donuts (you know the kind) in tow, Rose behind the wheel and Luisa with her shoes off and a baby name book in her lap, while she sits shotgun. The ladybug’s first name has been settled for months now, but they were still searching for a middle name. “What about… Mia Janelle?” Luisa suggests.  
Rose takes her eyes off the road for two split seconds to glance at Luisa with disgust. “Mia Angelica means my angel,” Luisa points out in a mumble.  
“It isn’t entirely horrible,” Rose says passively. She wasn’t too interested in the conversation, Luisa could tell.  
“What’s wrong?” she asks, powder still on her lips. She wanted to lean in and kiss her with those powdery lips, but her current size (and Rose’s present attitude) made that kind of difficult.  
“Nothing’s wrong, I’m just focusing on the road,” Rose obliges. She’s a good liar, but somehow Luisa is able to see through her way too often.  
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Luisa settles bitterly. Her biggest pet peeve, because of their past, is Rose lying to her; anyone lying to her, really, but most importantly her.  
“Where did you just come up with that?” Rose argues, almost offended. As if it isn’t the truth.  
Luisa crosses her arms, resting her elbows on her belly. “I have a genius level IQ, Rose, I’m not stupid. And I know you.”  
Rose just ignores her. “There’s nothing up with me, Luisa, but if there’s something up with you, you can work through it on our own, I’m driving.” 

“I think it has to do with your test results,” Luisa continues after a few silent, stubborn moments. “You haven't told me about those yet… I’m sure you got them though.”  
“You’re really reaching now,” Rose mutters. Again, as if it isn’t the truth.  
“Then tell me I’m wrong,” Luisa replies smugly. “If I’m wrong, I’ll be quiet, but we both know I’m not.”  
“You are not wrong, I’ll give you that,” Rose responds stiffly, “It doesn’t mean I’m telling you my test results.”  
“They’re bad, aren’t they?” Luisa asks, goosebumps appearing on her skin. “You would’ve told me if they were good. Just tell me, Rose, what are we dealing with? Am I gonna have to do this drive alone in two weeks?”  
“No!” Rose yells, Luisa having finally gotten a rise out of her. Conveniently, they happen to be stopped at a red light. “I am coming home with you from this trip, I am coming home with you from the hospital when we have our baby, I am coming home with you for as many days I possibly can, for the rest of my life. Do you hear me?”  
Luisa averts her eyes down to her feet. “Look at me,” Rose snaps, “Do you hear me?”  
Finally, she gets a nod, as the light turns green and they keep moving. “That being said, my test results were not… optimal.” Rose finally divulges. “My blood counts are low, the chemo doesn’t seem to be helping, and the doctors don’t know what the fuck is going on. They told me though that it’s hopefully just the aftermath of the nasty cold I had. I didn’t want to tell you, because I want this trip to be happy for us. I want this to be a nice holiday, not my last trip, in your eyes.”  
“What is it in your eyes?” Luisa asks honestly.  
“I’m not sure,” Rose admits. She turns the radio up as the mood sinks, even though it doesn’t help. They’ll be in Boston, or at least Washington, before they could get past that.

-

“I’m sorry today wasn’t a good day,” Rose apologizes, that night in bed.  
“It’s okay, it was inevitable,” Luisa responds, a little bit cold, however. She wishes it would’ve come up sooner, not on the I-95 before the South Carolina border.  
“I should’ve told you sooner,” Rose acknowledges.  
Luisa shrugs. “It doesn’t matter now, go to sleep.”  
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Rose tries. She’s been working towards statements like that in their relationship, the acknowledgement of Luisa’s feelings and her part in them. She’s learned that line by heart over the past years really.  
“I know,” Luisa nods. “It’s okay. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow night, we’ll be able to see the harbour from our bed, smell the fish-”  
“You don’t smell the fish, stupid,” Rose grins and forces Luisa into a hug. “That’s the beauty of it. You’ll see.”

-

It was just the way Rose remembered it being, she wasn’t sure how reliable her memory was after all these years and all the things she’d seen since. But it was reliable, she remembered correctly. 

“You’re not much of a history buff, are you?” Rose asks, looking from the city skyline to her fiancee for a moment.  
Luisa shakes her head. “I can appreciate that there’s history here, but it isn’t really my thing,” she admits.  
“That makes tourism a little more difficult,” Rose smiles, her easy, charming smile, “But there’s still lots to do.”  
Luisa nods, snuggling into her love’s thin but warm body. “We have all week,” she muses. “We can take it slow.”  
“I don’t want to take it slow,” Rose contends. “I want to do everything with you, all week.”  
“Our great adventure,” Luisa adds quietly, her eyes skimming across the night skyline, the buildings and the boats and the sparkling water.  
“Our great adventure,” Rose replies, just as quietly. She loves it already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We can live like Jack and Sally  
> If we want....  
> Where you can always find me  
> And we'll have Halloween on Christmas.  
> And in the night we'll wish this never ends,  
> We'll wish this never ends...."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'd give up forever to touch you  
> 'Cause I know that you feel me somehow  
> You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
> And I don't want to go home right now
> 
> And all I can taste is this moment  
> And all I can breathe is your life  
> 'Cause sooner or later it's over  
> I just don't want to miss you tonight

Soooo much food. Sooo much fun, but sooo much food; that’s what Luisa had to say by the halfway point of their trip.  
After a morning at Quincy Market (all the food), Rose has guided them to a nearby park by the water. It had benches lined with autumn-coloured trees, an old fashioned carousel, and aptly a very scenic rose garden, in view of the harbourfront and all the boats, along with a long scenic trail to walk.  
“This is my favourite place,” Rose admits with a content sigh, looking out at the water from her spot on a bench. “I used to come here with my dad. We’d walk in the rose garden, and ride the carousel, watch the ships sail in and out…”  
“ … just you and your dad?” Luisa dares to ask very gently, trying to imagine little Rose on that very carousel with a loving father following her every movement with eagle eyes.  
Rose glances at her for a second before she looks back out on the water, and just when Luisa accepts that she isn’t going to answer, she does. “Just me and him, yeah… I think I mentioned before, my mom died when I was 4? So, just my dad and me in most of my memories,” Rose says quickly, as they get up from the bench and start walking.

“Rose, stop chewing on your lip, it’s chapped enough from chemo,” Luisa presses gently a few minutes later, slapping her fiancee’s shoulder playfully (and very lightly). “You always do that, I can remember you did it the night we met, before we kissed… It’s a nervous Rose thing, right?” She pauses for a second. “I’m sorry I brought the parent topic up again… It’s not the happiest chapter for us,” she adds with a smile, trying to make the situation less awkward.  
“It’s not a Rose thing,” Rose replies shortly, scratching her head and fixing the knot of her scarf, the one with the roses on it. “It’s more a Clara thing,” she states simply and walks two steps ahead of Luisa now.  
Grabbing Rose’s arm Luisa makes her stop and look at her. “Hey, you can talk to me about anything, you should know that by now. I want to know every little thing about you, but if you’re not comfortable, I get it, it’s okay.”

From the way Rose’s blue eyes scan her face, Luisa can tell what she feels in this exact moment; insecurity mixing with the knowledge of being able to trust Luisa. She had always been the only one able to read Rose like an open book, who didn’t bother to hide her emotions so carefully anymore now anyways. She really had changed. And she had a feeling that the biggest change was yet to come.  
“I used to suck my thumb all the time, as I told you before… I did it until I was six. All the other kids at school staring at me made me so uncomfortable that I stopped from one day to the next. Yet, my brain needed a replacement for that habit, so I started to chew my lip every time I was upset or nervous. And well, I was nervous a lot,” Rose tells her a bit shyly and sucks her lip right back in between her teeth.  
“Seems like you still are,” Luisa smiles and kisses her in order to distract her. “Can you tell me a bit more about Clara?” she asks.  
“I wasn’t a very interesting kid to be honest. Also, please don’t talk about ‘Clara’ in the third person; that was me, Lu, not some strange girl, just me,” Rose snorts, visibly uncomfortable, knowing all too well Luisa has tasted blood now and won’t give up on this topic easily.

“So, you used to come to this park with your dad and ride the carousel and you sucked your thumb and bit your lip. Wow, I know so much about baby-you already… Come on, Rose, we’re in Boston, we’re where you grew up– you must’ve expected I’d ask questions. What were your parents like? Where did you live? Do you still have anyone here, grandparents maybe?”  
“Okay, okay, easy there, tiger… Both sets of grandparents aren’t from here, my parents weren’t from here either, so no one’s still here,” Rose answers the one question she considers the easiest.  
“Where were your parents from?” Luisa continues, taking Rose’s hand, entwining their fingers in order to make her feel a little more at ease.  
“My dad was French. He came here because he was a chef and literally loved fish more than anything, except me and my mom, maybe. She was Irish and had moved to Boston to study law at Harvard… and, they met, fell in love, got married, had me, and so on.”  
“Irish?” Luisa grins. “So that’s where the hair comes from!”  
To her surprise, Rose lets out a small chuckle as well. “No, actually my dad was the redhead, my mom wasn’t your typical Irish stereotype, she had dark hair. I inherited her eyes though, or at least that’s what my dad always said.”  
“What happened?” Luisa asks, more seriously now.  
“What do you mean?” Rose counters, knowing exactly what her fiancee wants to know, but needing a little more time to think about how to tell her that.  
“To your mom…” Luisa says sadly, squeezing Rose’s hand.  
“She died,” she says simply.  
“Rose…” Luisa starts, but Rose interrupts her, finally giving in.  
“Cancer.” 

When the word leaves her mouth, she sees tears fill Luisa’s eyes, all too ready to stream down her cheeks. “She had cancer too, yeah, but that doesn’t mean that’s what’s gonna kill me,” she adds quickly. “My scans aren’t great, but I can still win this fight. Luisa, look at me, please. I love you, so much, and I love how far we’ve come. I’m not willing to give this up yet, to give us up.” Rose ends the conversation with her voice ever so strong and kisses Luisa’s tears away.

“ … I wanted to wait for a better moment actually,“ Rose produces a small black box from her coat pocket. “But I think right now is good enough.” She opens the box revealing a delicate, golden ring, bearing not the slightest resemblance to what both their old wedding bands had looked like. It’s simple, uncomplicated, not interrupted by any huge gem to boast about the wearing hand’s relationship status. Despite its simplicity, the weight of it leaves no doubt about it’s high value. Engraved on the inside it says: ‘And then there were fireworks’

“Lu, I know we said we wanted to wait until Mia’s here, but I thought we could maybe do it twice? I’m not too keen on promising you my love in front of other people, it makes me nervous, as you would know,” she chuckles and takes the ring out of the box and slides it gingerly over her love’s finger. “Luisa Alver, I love you more than anything in this world, you are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I promise to always be there for you, not until death do us apart and that kind of garbage, but really, always. I’ll always be with you, right in here.” She puts her hand over Luisa’s heart and leans in for a deep kiss, tasting salty tears, fear, and hope. “You are the only one who truly sees me, the only one I ever wanted to understand and I don’t deserve your love, but I couldn’t be more grateful for it.”

After several minutes pass and Luisa successfully stains Rose’s jacket with her tears, she’s able to look down at her hand and admire the ring for the first time.  
“And… and your ring! Where’s your ring?” she hiccups, still not completely grasping the situation.   
Rose takes it out of her other coat pocket and puts it into Luisa’s hand.  
“Your turn, honey. And don’t worry, you don’t have to make it as dramatic as I did. We both know no one’s able to beat me there,” Rose laughs softly, that special laugh only Luisa was ever able to get out of her.  
“You’re unbelievable, you know that, right?” Luisa starts and blinks the last few tears away, her eyes puffy and red, but her smile reaching from one ear to the other.

This is a mess, and they both know it. It’s so spontaneous and far from perfect, but isn’t that how it always happens? Nothing was ever perfect with them, and yet there were those moments, when just for the two of them the world stopped and nothing else mattered. ‘Perfect’ didn’t matter in the end, that’s what Rose and Luisa had both learned from each other. ‘Perfect’ is just a word, and those moments never last, but there will always be memories– and memories are forever.

-

On their last night, they decide to test out Little Italy.   
“We can’t go to real Italy, unfortunately,” Rose points out, “So this is the next best thing. It’s pretty close too in my opinion.”  
“Didn’t you and my dad go to Italy once?” Luisa asks, not really thinking.  
Rose nods hesitantly. “Yes,” she responds, “We almost made you a sibling that trip.”  
“What?!” Luisa retorts, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.  
“Don’t make a scene about it,” Rose mumbles, pushing her to keep moving. “You brought up your father.”   
“I didn’t want to,” Luisa objects. “The thought of you and him in bed still makes me feel sick.”   
“Me too,” Rose admits. “The past is the past, though, we can let those memories rest with him. He was a good man.”  
Luisa glares at her fiancee. Her father was a touchy subject for them, one that really didn’t need to be brought up right now. “Yup, changing the topic,” Rose nods, stopping in front of a restaurant. “Food?” 

“I’ve really enjoyed these past two weeks,” Luisa mentions over dinner. “You did too, right?” This was really Rose’s trip; it was her idea, she’d planned it, picked the destination and everything, this place meant so much more to her than it did to Luisa; so she wanted to make sure Rose enjoyed it.  
“I really did,” Rose smiles. “I love it here, but it’s so much better with you.” She reaches her hand across the table and laces her fingers with her fiancee’s. “I love that we got to spend the time together just us two, uninterrupted, I didn’t have to be in the hospital, or go for tests, or stay in bed…”  
“You probably should’ve rested a little more than you did,” Luisa points out.   
“I can rest when I’m dead,” Rose rolls her eyes, smiling.   
Again, Luisa glares, but she smiles too. “Stop that.”   
Rose just grins. “I’m glad we didn’t slow down or worry about anything, we just… were normal, for a little bit, that’s something we’ve never been. There’s always been something with us.”  
“Yeah,” Luisa agrees. “I’m glad too.” 

They walk back to the water taxi dock later that night, laughing while Luisa tries to swat away mosquitos. “The only bug I want is our ladybug.”  
“The mosquitos don’t want me,” Rose smirks, “My blood is nasty and cancerous. Yours is all sweet and pink with pregnancy hormones.”  
“I have pink blood now, huh Dr. Ruvelle?” Luisa jokes.   
“Yes,” Rose agrees with a smile and kiss on the cheek. “You have pink, pregnant blood.” 

-

Luisa pulls the car up the driveway to their house carefully in order to not disturb a sleeping Rose in the passenger seat. It had taken a hell of a long time to convince Rose that she would absolutely not go the wrong way or even worse, cause an accident, if she closed her eyes for a while. Rose really was the worst backseat driver ever, and as Luisa hadn’t been willing to switch anymore somewhere after Savannah, she’d had to deal with that for about 5 long hours. Rose was dead tired on the drive back, the exhaustion of the past two weeks had started to show on their last day in Boston and Luisa didn’t want to overstrain her fiancee even more by making her drive half the way home. It had been lots of complaining on the road but about an hour and a half ago Rose had finally drifted off.

As quiet as possible, Luisa opens the car door and unlocks the trunk to start unpacking their stuff. Rose should sleep a little longer anyways, and if she woke her she’d only insist on helping to carry their stuff into the house. Just as she wants to lift their “apocalypse-bag” from the trunk, she feels a hand on her shoulder.  
“Sweetie, you're not lifting that!” Chris whispers with a grin on his face as Luisa spins around.

“Hey Chris,” she whispers back and hugs him tightly. She’s really glad to see him. She would never not feel good when seeing his soft face.  
“How was your trip? Did everything go okay?” he asks a little worried. He had seen Rose passed out in the car when he walked out, after all.  
“It was perfect, we had the best time. It felt so good to be there with her, forget about all the bad stuff for a while and just enjoy our time together. And… Oh my god, Chris, look!” Luisa exclaims, still keeping her voice down however and shows him her hand with the beautiful golden ring on it.  
“What?! Did you? Like, did you get married up there?” he bursts and has seemingly forgotten about Rose in the car.  
“Shhh– I was so glad she finally fell asleep after Fort Pierce. And no, we didn’t get married officially yet, but Rose was being Rose once again, and she’d bought the rings secretly before our trip and gave the most dramatic, cheesiest, loveliest speech out of nowhere in Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park! She said she wants to do it twice, promise her love to me, but just to me alone the first time because she doesn’t like people listening. I cried my eyes out,” Luisa explains with a huge smile on her face.  
“She’s unbelievable,” Chris smiles as he carries the suitcase to the front door.

Once the trunk is empty, Luisa gently opens Rose’s car door and watches her sleep for another moment. Rose’s scarf had come off her head and Luisa smiles when she sees dozens of tiny new freckles all over her love’s pale head. She hadn’t gotten nearly enough sun in the past weeks, but Boston had provided them with plenty rays of autumn sun.   
“Darling,” Luisa whispers and presses a gentle kiss to Rose’s head. “Wake up, we’re home,” she adds.  
Tired blue eyes look up at Luisa, pinkish lips slowly curling up into a beautiful, big smile.  
“Did you drug me, why was I asleep in the car? I’m never able to sleep while somebody else is driving,” Rose slurs and stretches her numb limbs before getting out of the car. “Feels good to be home again– our home, still sounds so strange,” she continues and pulls Luisa in for a deep kiss.  
“It does, but I love it… “ Luisa manages to get out between kisses.  
“I love you.” Rose purrs and traps Luisa between the car and herself, letting her hands wander down a little further.  
“Get a room you two, honestly! I’m still here!” a well-known male voice disturbs them.  
“Yeah, I forgot about you, Christian. Thanks for looking after our house and stuff… I see it didn’t burn to the ground or anything so you can leave us to it, we’ll find the way to the bedroom.” Rose counters, sounding a bit too serious for it to be a joke.  
“I’m glad to see you too, Rosemary,” he answers with a wink and pulls her into a hug before she can even think about saying no.

Back inside, Luisa invites Chris to stay for dinner, boiling some water to make spaghetti. Rose has tried to fix her scarf in front of the hallway mirror but ends up shuffling back into the kitchen in defeat. “I hate to admit it, but you were right Luisa… I need help with it,” she grumbles.  
“In a second, babe,” Luisa laughs as she pours the sauce into a second pot.

Chris walks into the kitchen, carrying a small picture frame and grins ear to ear. “So this past week I had the chance to be a little nosey and look at your pictures in the living room… I always thought to myself that you’d either had white blonde hair or that you’d been a redhead, and can I say this, the picture says it all, Rose!” he says, barely containing his smile and shows her the picture.

He had managed to pick the one picture Rose hated with passion; while Luisa adored it so much, she had printed it out, put it in a frame and on the wall in the living room. It showed Rose fast asleep on a beach towel last summer, her luscious red locks sprawled out behind her and while she was lying in the shade of an umbrella, the sunburn from previous days was clearly visible and the dark freckles on her cheeks and nose not hidden by any makeup at all.  
“You look really cute though, gorgeous!” he adds enthusiastically, nudging Rose’s side as she stares him down with her cold blue eyes, seemingly unimpressed.  
“You picked the one picture of them all that she hates most, Chris,” Luisa giggles from her spot by the stove. “Darling, stop trying to kill Chris with your eyes. You are an adorable tomato in this picture.”

-

Rose wakes up feeling Luisa’s hand pressed to her forehead. 

“Jesus, woman, you are hot,” Luisa exclaims.  
Rose grins, her eyes still closed. “I’m sure you look pretty fine yourself this morning.”   
Luisa giggles, blushing. “I mean that you have a fever like a damn furnace. Open your mouth, let me stick the thermometer in.”  
“I don’t want the thermometer in my mouth, I want -” Rose whines, but is shut up with the thermometer fairly quickly, cold metal against her tongue. Luisa pulls it back out after a few seconds, reading the number it displays and frowning.   
“I don’t care what it says, I’m not sick,” Rose mumbles, opening her eyes.  
“You’re sick, Rose,” Luisa sighs. “I’ll get you a cold towel and make you tea.”  
“I don’t want tea, I don’t want a cold towel, I don’t want to be sick,” Rose insists, trying to get out of bed and follow Luisa into the bathroom.   
Luisa spins around quickly, putting her hands on Rose’s shoulders and stopping her. “Darling, c’mon. You just need rest, we talked about this, you didn’t rest enough on our trip, but you have to make up for it now that we’re home.”  
Rose sighs argumentatively. She looks like a pale, sick, frustrated toddler, who’s been told she can’t play outside.  
“It’s for your own good,” Luisa reminds her, coming closer and kissing her.   
“Will you rest with me?” Rose pouts.   
“I…” Luisa starts.   
“Oh my God, you have that appointment today,” Rose remembers. Luisa hears how upset she is in her voice– how it waivers a few octaves higher, and in the way she bites her lip. “Luisa, I really want to come to that, you know that!”   
Luisa does feel bad, she really does. “I know, babe, I know, it’s just a risk to go the doctors right now, there are germs, and sick people, and you can’t…”  
“I want to see the ladybug,” Rose whimpers. She seems close to tears even, which is a new reaction for her to say the least. Tears aren’t her usual.   
“I want you to see her too,” Luisa says, “but it’s so risky, Rose, I don’t want you to get even more sick and have to go to the hospital or anything…” 

She’s right, Rose knows that. “I’ll bring you a picture, of course...” Luisa hesitates.  
“Thank you,” Rose mumbles.   
“Hey, I can call Chris to come stay with you?” Luisa suggests. “He probably doesn’t make chicken noodle soup as good as I do, but he’s still company?”  
“He’s not you,” Rose pouts, “But if it isn’t trouble for him to come over, I’d take him. At least he’ll make me laugh.”  
Luisa smiles. “It makes me feel better knowing you’ll have him.”  
“And it makes me feel better knowing that you’re leaving me only because you’re going to see our ladybug,” Rose agrees, leaning in for a kiss. 

An hour later, Luisa’s bustling out the door, but not before pressing a kiss to Rose’s forehead. “I love you,” she exclaims. “Be good.”  
“She’s always good, short stack,” Chris grins and Luisa just raises an eyebrow for an answer.  
“Tell Mia her other mom loves her, too!” Rose yells, before Luisa’s out of earshot. She looks back to see Chris just smiling contently. “What’s with you?” she asks.  
“You two are gonna be the best parents,” he chuckles. “No, I’m serious. You are so loving. Your little girl is so lucky to have two mothers who are obviously going to adore her, you both have so much to give.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I don't want the world to see me  
> 'Cause I don't think that they'd understand  
> When everything's made to be broken  
> I just want you to know who I am


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want to forget about this stupid sickness whenever I can and just be happy with you and laugh with you for a while, before the focus is again on the fact that my own body is trying to kill itself!” Rose hiccups angrily and wipes her tears away. “And what I hate most is that it’s managed to make me cry like three times already…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much fun, and oh so appropriate to be posting around 4/20..... and interesting that last week on JTV they talked about weed + cancer patients (we wrote this in the fall, btw, before JTV tackled Xo's cancer storyline), nice timing! Enjoy high as a kite, Halloween Rose!

Chapter 10

Rose smiles for a second before opening her mouth. “You really think I’m going to be a good mom, Christian?”   
“Well, Roselyn,” Chris grins, “I can’t say I know you super well, but honestly I do. Do you have doubts of that?”   
Rose shrugs meekly. “Sometimes I wonder how long I’m going to have with her anyways,” she admits. “Days? Weeks? Months?”  
“Years,” Chris reinforces. “Hopefully years and years and years…”   
“That’s just not realistic,” Rose shakes her head. “Look at me, Chris. I’m dying. I’m not going to make it to see my daughter grow up.” And only because she’s Rose can she say that as if it’s tomorrow’s weather forecast. If Luisa were here… If Luisa were here, Rose wouldn’t have been able to get those words out, not wanting to hurt her. But she didn’t have to filter around Chris.   
“Don’t think like that. I know it feels that way, gorgeous–” Chris starts, before Rose cuts him off.  
“About that,” Rose starts, “Do you really think I’m gorgeous? I was a lot prettier before all this…”  
Chris chuckles. “I know what you looked like before, I’ve seen pictures,” he reminds her. “Sure, the perfect, fiery locks and the clear skin and long lashes were glamourous, but it wasn’t what made you beautiful, Rose.”  
“You’re not Luisa, you don’t have to say that just so that I don’t feel bad,” Rose points out. “Luisa’s obligated to say I’m still beautiful, you’re not.”   
“I’m not saying it out of obligation, neither is Luisa,” Chris reassures her. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”

“Speaking of the red-haired, clear skinned, long lashed Rose, prior to the cancer,” Chris starts, “Tell me about her. I really don’t know anything about you, other than hearsay from Luisa, but I would like to, if you’d tell me.”  
She doesn’t want to scare him. She definitely isn’t going to come clean about everything; about Clara, and Sin Rostro, the years she spent in prison...  
“I made a lot of mistakes,” Rose admits. “I did things I’m not proud of… I probably deserve to be dying of leukemia… but I’ve always been and still am strong, I will say that. I am regretful, or, I try my best to be. I can be pretty stubborn too… and annoying probably. The cancer didn’t change me much, I still am all those things… but because of Luisa I am just… more, I guess, and better too. And I just want to make the most of our time together now.”  
“It’s affected your concept of time,” Chris points out. “That’s the way Julian used to put it. It just puts into perspective that things aren’t endless, they aren’t forever, they end. Everything ends.”   
“I’m not afraid of that,” Rose shakes her head. “It’s coming for everyone, I know, but I’m not afraid of it, I’m not afraid of dying. I never was. Concerning the circles I grew up in, I managed to stay alive long enough anyways… I am afraid of leaving Luisa behind, though.”  
“Why’s that?” Chris asks her gently.

“She’s alone, Chris,” Rose tells him. “She doesn’t have family that’s good to her. She’s going to have a baby that I’m leaving her to raise all alone… I hate that, I hate the thought that I’m probably not able to be there for her and for our daughter. And I hate that she’ll have trouble moving on, if she ever does, because I’ll always be there. I don’t want her to forget about me, but I don’t want her to dwell on it either.”  
Chris rubs light circles on Rose’s back, soothing her. Her cheeks turn red when she’s upset, he saw the red storm approaching and tries his best to stop it. The whole situation seems to scare her a lot more than he ever saw her admit in front of Luisa. He remembers just too well how frightened his lover could get sometimes; when he refused to believe that there’s always a chance, and there’s always hope.  
“Luisa… It would be difficult for her; I would know, I’ve been there before. But she is strong too, Rose. It would be the hardest thing she’s ever done but she’d get through it. Why don’t you tell her, about your fears? You can talk to her, Rose, she’s going to be your wife soon.”  
“I just don’t want to scare her,” Rose frets. “She’s already scared, and I don’t blame her. I want to be the strong one here.”  
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be vulnerable too,” Chris tells her.   
Rose shakes her head. She hates the idea of being vulnerable.  
“Just… When I no longer can, you have to watch out for them, okay? Be the strong one for Luisa, when I’m gone.” she urges and finally looks him in the eyes again. “Promise me that?”  
“Oh gorgeous I really, really hope that won’t happen for a long, long time. You gotta think positive, you’ll see, it really does the trick most of the time,” Chris smiles encouragingly. He remembers Luisa calling Rose a little dramatic sometimes, but he would never dare to not take her fears serious.  
“But I promise of course. I will be there for Luisa, and for Mia, and for you too.”  
“I’m actually… I’m doing something, for Mia,” Rose mentions. “If I tell you about it, you have to promise not to tell Luisa, okay? Promise.”   
“I promise, I promise,” Chris contends again. “What are you up to?” 

-

“You barely put on weight, Rose… I hoped you would have regained a few pounds at least after your cold, but it pretty much stayed the same,” Dr. Jandl states worriedly and gestures Rose to sit down for her blood test.  
Rose and Luisa had mostly spent the past two weeks at home, since Rose wasn’t doing too good after their Boston trip. It hadn’t exactly been a bad time though– admittedly, making her eat had been (as usual) a struggle but otherwise these two weeks had been filled with snuggles, too many movies, too many blankets and tons of love.

“I’m trying to eat more… really, doc,” Rose explains from her seat, wiping her already sweaty hands on her jeans while eyeing the needle that is going to come at her in a moment.  
“You could try a little harder though, babe,” Luisa smiles cheekily and grabs her fiancee’s cold, sweaty hand. “As far as I remember, you tried to convince me two days ago that you are capable of surviving solely on pomegranate juice, smarties, and powdered donuts?”  
“Tattletale!” Rose whispers, a little offended, and blushes when the doctor starts to laugh at them.  
“Okay, I’m happy to hear that you eat anything at all, but we should really try to make you eat a little healthier, that’ll get some more weight onto you again,” she smiles and fixes the tourniquet around Rose’s thin upper arm. “Same procedure as always: Look to your beautiful, pregnant girlfriend now and try to keep calm.” the doctor tells her and lines the needle up with her patient’s arm.  
“Fiancee, not girlfriend,” Rose manages to get out before she squeezes Luisa’s hand as crushingly as always when the needle pierces her skin. She isn’t too scared of it anymore, or at least that’s what she tries to tell herself, but looking at it would still make her feel sick.

A little later they’re back at the infusion suite, that is really starting to feel like a second home to them. Rose has her own pillows, her own blanket and even a picture of her and Luisa in here by now. The infusion is slowly but steadily dripping into her veins and Rose feels her eyelids becoming heavy yet again.  
“Sleep, darling. It’s alright, you can continue with your book later when you have more energy again,” Luisa says gently and takes Rose’s glasses off, pressing a soft kiss to her love’s forehead before she grabs the book from her hands. “Shouldn’t you have finished that one by now?” she asks with a grin on her face.   
“I’m re-reading it… I just don’t want to mess our ladybug up, and children combined with psychology is actually more interesting than I thought… “ Rose mumbles, lying down flat in the bed and drifts off only a few seconds later.

Chris picks Luisa up for a quick coffee a little later and when she comes back to Rose’s room her mood sinks to ground level.  
“Oh my god! What is going on?” Luisa exclaims startled and rushes to the bed.  
Rose’s doctor and a nurse are in there and Rose seems to be getting rid of the sparse breakfast Luisa had managed to get into her this morning.

“I checked up on her about half an hour ago, when the infusion was almost finished, and Rose said she feels a bit sick. She has a high fever and her body isn’t happy about being given chemo again it seems,” the doctor explains with a big sigh. “She can’t go home like this, I have to admit her,” she adds and reaches over to squeeze Luisa’s hand in sympathy.

-

“Was she doing a little better yesterday?” Chris asks, as he parks the car in the garage of the hospital.   
“No, not really, same scene as the day before when she got her infusion… Just that she didn’t eat anything yesterday, but she couldn’t even keep the tea down,” Luisa sighs and climbs out of the passenger seat with slight difficulties.  
“How are you keeping up?” Chris asks with his half concerned, half optimistic voice.  
“I’m good, our little ladybug’s getting so big now, and I don’t feel her as often anymore, but we’re good,” Luisa calms but doesn’t really look at Chris while speaking. Admittedly, she didn’t feel too great. She couldn’t sleep at night, all alone in their dark and empty house, that lost the feeling of home when Rose wasn’t there with her. Being all alone, it was just a huge building and yet the walls were closing in on her, and she missed Mia’s constant movements more than she’d expected to.

Walking down the long hallway to Rose’s hospital room, Luisa feels her breathing becoming faster and faster. Why was she always so scared to come back in the morning? They would’ve called her if anything had happened during the night. Deep breaths, it’s alright.

“Morning, darling,” she greets an awake, yet a little absent looking Rose. “How are you feeling?”  
“I want to take a shower,” Rose announces immediately after she realizes it’s Luisa who’s just entered the room.  
“That’s one way to greet your fiancee in the morning,” Luisa smiles, sits down at the edge of the bed beside her ghostly pale lover and feels her cheek. “Did the doctors say you’re allowed to get up? You weren’t yesterday… “ she asks and presses a kiss to Rose’s cheek, which, to her joy, is not too warm anymore.  
“I don’t know, I haven’t asked. Is it really snowing outside?!” Rose exclaims suddenly, sits up in bed and tilts her head adorably to look out of the window.  
“No, darling? I think Florida will have to deal with a snow-lacking winter yet again this year,” Luisa laughs and spots the almost finished cup of tea on the nightstand.

Yesterday the doctor had suggested to try something… alternative... to help Rose’s body “calm down” again. The method she suggested however hadn’t really convinced her sick patient at first–  
tea fortified with cannabis. Rose had been tired, but not too tired to protest this proposed method fiercely, also because she didn’t want anything that fell under the category of “addictive” near Luisa, but that she didn’t say out loud. In the end however, she had agreed to try it if it would help her nausea. 

“Well, how I am supposed to know that, if I can’t even watch the weather forecast because I get way too dizzy watching TV!” Rose exclaims and pushes Luisa’s shirt up to place kisses all over her huge baby bump. “Good morning, ladybuuuuug!” she giggles.

“I still want a shower though, I feel yucky,” she repeats, once she has placed the last kiss over her love’s stretched belly.  
“We’ll ask your doctor when she comes to do your blood test, okay?” Luisa laughs and strokes over Rose’s bald head.  
“Lu? Do you think… that… can we make pot donuts after the ladybug has escaped its cocoon? I like this plant, and I like donuts, and I am sure they would be loooooads of fun combined!” Rose snickers and nuzzles her head in Luisa’s neck.

-

Luisa has almost given up on trying to make her still high, nutjob of a fiancee, who’s currently wrapped in nothing but a towel, slow down again. Rose seems to be feeling good; way too good.

“Luisa, how could we forget it’s Halloweeeeen today? You didn’t even call me Jack Skellington once, but I feel as great as he did when he stole Christmas!” she blabbers happily, while she’s letting Luisa help her into That Shirt, she swore she’d never wear. Not even on Halloween.  
“I think I’m good enough to go home and trick or treating with you, I mean we technically even have a child with us so-” she goes on, but Luisa interrupts her, still smiling at her stoned lunatic lover.  
“You’re getting your last infusion for a while again today, remember? We can’t go home yet, and I really think you should be taking it easy, babe; you’ve been feeling pretty bad the last couple of days, it’s the tea that’s making you feel so good right now,” she tries to explain, not sure if Rose was able to follow, since she seems occupied staring at their reflection in the mirror.

“Can we paint our faces at least?” Rose asks excitedly, still staring into her mirror image’s eyes.  
“Darling, I said we have to take it easy, okay? When the meds wear off, you might start to feel sick again…” Luisa says quietly and strokes over Rose’s back.  
“I know I’m a little sloshed, but do you realize what kind of chance this is for you, Luisa Alver?” a suddenly very serious Rose asks and looks at the small, stunned brunette beside her with big blue eyes. “You should be jumping for joy about what I’ve just said because I would never voluntarily suggest that, if I hadn’t drank that tea. Come on, I’ll let you paint my face like Jack and then I get to make you look like Sally and…” she stops and her eyes fill with tears that roll down her cheeks a moment later.

“I just… I feel like crap almost every single day now and I… everyone tells me I have to rest, stay in bed, take my meds and I do all of that! But then, even when I feel better you all still look at me like I’m a broken teacup and I hate that! I want to forget about this stupid sickness whenever I can and just be happy with you and laugh with you for a while, before the focus is again on the fact that my own body is trying to kill itself!” Rose hiccups angrily and wipes her tears away. “And what I hate most is that it’s managed to make me cry like three times already…”  
Luisa has listened to all of this silently, almost unable to hold her own tears back. Now she wraps the bag of bones in the Jack Skellington T-shirt, who she really had begun to treat like a piece of fine China lately, in a big hug.  
“I-I’m so sorry, Rose. I hate all of this just as much as you do and…” she stammers against the dark fabric of the shirt, letting her tears stream out after all.

And somewhere under all the medical scents and a bittersweet odor of sickness, somewhere in this weak, emaciated body, there’s still her, there’s still Rose.  
“I love you. I know you’re fighting this as hard as you can, because you’re a tough cookie even when you’re a little high. It’ll all be good in the end, and our baby will be here soon. And yes, of course we can paint our faces and laugh until our stomachs hurt today because you’re right! We have to cherish these moments, so let’s not think about the bad stuff anymore today.” Luisa comes on strong again and allows freckled hands to gently wipe her tears away.  
“I love you too, Luisa. So much it hurts sometimes.” Rose whispers with a small smile, grabbing her favourite person on Earth’s hand.

-

Luisa giggles when Rose dabs the greenish face paint over her eyelids.  
“Hold still! You’re messing up my work,” Rose smiles and quickly pecks Luisa on the right cheek, the one that isn’t covered in paint yet.  
“But it tickles, and the paint and your fingers are so cold!” Luisa complains, yet she closes her eyes again and tries to let Rose do her makeup without twitching.

“Can I say, I am really quite happy with my Jack face that I painted on you, babe!” Luisa says proudly when she’s allowed to open her eyes again.  
“How hard can it be to just cover my head in white paint and put on some black around my eyes and lips? I provided you with the perfect canvas, that’s the true reason it looks so good, honey,” an almost unrecognisable skull face with intense blue eyes peeking out of pitch black holes laughs back at a greenish Luisa. “Okay, I gotta do the scars now!” Rose adds and sits up a little straighter in bed.   
It makes Luisa feel stupidly happy seeing this woman, that used to have the thickest walls built around her core once, be so excited about something as simple as painting their faces. Sometimes she tried to imagine what could have become of little Clara if her life had taken a different direction. 

Yet, if Clara hadn’t become Rose, they would’ve never met and for nothing in this world would Luisa want to miss their story.

“Hey Sally, you’re zoning out again, what are you thinking about?” Rose brings her back to reality, admiring her finished work with a sly smile. She still feels a bit hazy but the tea has mostly worn off now and, thankfully, the nausea has not returned.  
“Just that I’m engaged to the most beautiful skeleton ever,” Luisa responds and absentmindedly rests her hands on her belly.  
“Liar. You just don’t want to tell me what you really were thinking, but it’s okay,” Rose declares and grabs her phone. “I would argue that I look good too… With or without the makeup. We should probably take a picture of our faces so Mia can laugh at us when she’s older, or just be embarrassed about how ridiculously childish her moms were.”  
“We’ll give her plenty of reasons to be embarrassed when she’s a teen, this picture will be her smallest worry probably,” Luisa grins.  
“Just smile already,” Rose laughs, snapping a series of pictures. She could never really lie about the fact that she liked to dress up and pretend to be somebody else. She had done it often enough before, but never without a concrete plan and goal behind it. This was just fun. 

When Chris comes back in the late afternoon, wearing fake vampire fangs and a black cape, Rose triumphs seeing him jump a little when he spots them.  
“Jesus, ladies, you’re gonna scare some doctors half to death!” he gasps exaggeratedly.  
“Your costume is lame, no wonder no one’s peeing their pants upon seeing you, Christian! You look like a gay count Dracula who’s been a vegetarian for centuries,” Rose grins, distracting herself from Luisa having to help her get out of bed by mocking Chris. “I’m the scariest in this room anyways, I wouldn’t even need makeup to scare children at this point, so I win the fright-competition anytime,” she adds, swaying a little, since she has been mostly laying in bed lately.  
“I’d appreciate it if Jack would focus on his endlessly long legs now and talk a little less,” Luisa quickly interrupts her, grabbing Rose’s hands when she starts to dangerously tilt backwards. “Babe, are you sure you’re okay to come down to the café with us? We could get you a wheelchair… that would be better probably,” Luisa suggests, knowing what Rose’s answer will be all too well.  
“No, no way! I’m good, my head needs a moment to get used to standing upright, but I can walk just fine!” Rose announces; she even manages to tie her shoes on her own, balancing on one leg at a time.  
“You do know you’re stubborn like no one before you, right?” Luisa sighs, hovering close by, in case her love’s stubbornness isn’t enough after all. To her surprise Rose is able to keep up with them walking down the hallways and into the café, which is also decorated spookily for the holiday.

After almost two hours of chatting and looking at all the other dressed up people around them, Chris and Luisa decide it’s time to get Rose back to bed by exchanging a look.  
“I’m not tired!” she protests before anyone’s even said anything about leaving, but Luisa should’ve known her better than to assume she wouldn’t have noticed their silent agreement.  
“Actually, I’m tired as well!” the brunette yawns.  
“No, it’s ‘You are tired’, without the ‘as well’, I don’t want to leave yet!” Rose pleads, clutching her almost finished cup of tea. She didn’t even want to think about when she’d had her last coffee. Admittedly, tea was not as bad as she had always thought, but still.  
“Gorgeous, Luisa is right. We’ve been down here for quite a while and your doctor will be coming to check in on you soon,” Chris tries, trying to support Luisa with a more practical reason, smiling at the pouting skullface across the table, some of the powdered sugar from the first thing she had eaten in two days still visible on the black paint around her mouth.

A few meters from her room, Rose suddenly stops and raises her hands to her face.  
“Hey Jack, what’s going on?” Chris asks jokingly and comes closer.  
“Darling,” Luisa starts, turning around as well. A second later, she sees blood dripping down Rose’s hands already. “Okay. Come on, we gotta get you into bed now.”  
When Rose remains frozen in place, head lowered, eyes trained on the quickly growing pool of blood in her palms, Chris acts rather quick, picks her up from the spot she’s standing on and carries her into the room.  
“It’s time we get you back to your room; Jack is starting to look a bit too scary now!” he jokes, carefully placing her on the edge of the bed, while Luisa disappears in the bathroom to fetch some tissues, a clean towel, and some makeup remover.

“Keep the tissues there, and chin down,” Luisa instructs. “Chin down! And pinch with your thumb and pointer finger.”  
“It’s in my throat, and my mouth,” Rose tells her, struggling to not choke.  
“Spit it out,” Luisa instructs, giving her another tissue. “Spit!”  
“Be gentle,” Chris scolds her softly. “Actually Luisa can you get an ice pack, please? Cold helps congeal the blood.”  
“You go get it!” Luisa snaps. “I need to be here with her.”   
“Go get an ice pack, Luisa,” Chris repeats, firmer this time, speaking as he sets a timer on his phone. “Please. We don’t want this bleeding to last longer than it has to.”  
Luisa leaves and comes back wordlessly, handing it to Chris considering Rose is out of hands. He folds it over the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. “I know it’s probably uncomfortable but it’s what’s going to stop this bleeding, gorgeous,” Chris points out. He looks up at Luisa, observing her reaction. “I’m kind of a seasoned pro, at these,” he mentions softly. “Sorry if I overstepped.”   
She shakes her head. “You’re really good with her,” she recognizes. “You know just what to do. I was a doctor for almost ten years and I just… panicked.”  
“You got scared,” Chris nods. “I used to as well. With a bowed head, an ice pack, and a timer for fifteen minutes, it’ll pass. That’s all you can do.”  
“Thanks, Christian,” Rose says, her voice sounding like a chipmunk’s, while she’s pinching her nose.   
Chris and Luisa smile, refraining from laughing at the sound of her voice. “Don’t worry about it, Rosetta.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very special chapter next week!!! x)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Contractions?!” Rose asks. “Like, real contractions, or just the Brandon-Higgs ones?!”

They’ve bust the baby names book back out. “The ladybug’s coming in two very short months, guys, we need to pick a middle name!”  
Chris rolls his eyes. “You’ll find one when you find one,” he tries. “Though, I still suggest Christina, or Kristen, or Crystal…”  
It’s Luisa’s turn to roll her eyes, and Chris huffs. “Alrighty then, what about… Susanna?”  
Rose’s lips curl into a smile. “I really like that,” she mentions. “Did you know it means rose in modern Hebrew?”  
“Sounds perfect to me,” Chris exclaims, slowly glancing to Luisa to see how she feels about it. “What do you think?”  
Rose seems amused by this, also looking to Luisa for a reaction. “I had an… ex, named Susanna,” Luisa admits, after a moment of hesitation. “It’s just kind of… ruined it, for me, I can’t name my daughter after her.”  
“Look at you and your flower name girlfriends,” Chris jokes. “You jealous, Rose?”  
Rose shrugs, seemingly overconfident. “There was no way she was as good as me. Right, Lu?”  
She was lucky she was cute. 

Their conversation is interrupted by Rose’s doctor knocking on the door. “Hate to interrupt,” she starts, “is now an okay time to talk?”  
“I’ll go,” Chris says gently, rising from his seat at the edge of Rose’s bed. “Best of luck, if you need anything, you know I’ll come back.” He smiles at the familiar doctor, and is on his way.

“What’s up, doc?” Luisa asks, once the door is closed. She’d be lying if she said her entire body hadn’t tensed at the mention of Rose’s doctor wanting to talk. Her stomach was doing somersaults now.  
“Sit, Luisa,” the doctor reassures her. That doesn’t help her nerves at all. “Rose, you’re okay with her being here to hear your test results?”  
Rose nods. “Of course,” she obliges, her fingers slowly creeping closer to Luisa’s, knowing without looking that her fiancee is tense with anxiety.  
The doctor nods, flipping open a file folder resting on her lap. “I have the results from your latest tests, Rose,” she starts. “I wish they were better.”  
“What are they?” Luisa interrupts.  
Rose squeezes her hand, reeling her back in for a second, non-verbally telling her not to worry, whatever the test results were or weren’t, it’d still be okay. But the doctor would beg to differ. “They aren’t good,” she admits. “Rose’s white count is still extremely low, lower than it was last time, actually. The chemo isn’t working the way we’d like it to. It hasn’t been for some time now, I would guess. There has been no progress made unfortunately, I’m sorry.”

Luisa takes a deep breath, as much as she can anyways, considering she feels as though the wind’s been knocked out of her. Rose takes one too, but it’s easier for her, she doesn’t feel the pressure the way Luisa does. “Okay,” Rose answers carefully. “So what do we do now?”  
“There is one more thing we can try,” the doctor answers her. “We can try a stem cell transplant; transferring a donor’s blood cells into yours, given that your own blood cells are becoming too weak to fight off the cancer on their own. These new ones can fight off the cancer the chemotherapy couldn’t and hopefully put you into a state of recovery.”  
Rose nods. “Okay, okay that sounds good,” she says, jostling Luisa’s hand a little. “So, we just need to find a donor, then?”  
The doctor nods. “It can be a difficult process that can take some time, but it’s okay, we can do it. Do you have any siblings, Rose?”  
Rose freezes a little; the thought of Derek, the slain half-brother she hadn’t thought of in years, flashing in her mind for a moment. He wasn’t her full sibling anyways, he didn’t count. “Uh, no, I don’t,” she replies.  
“Siblings are usually the first people tested, they’re most likely to be matches,” the doctor tells her, “but, it isn’t impossible to find an unrelated donor–”  
“I could be a match, couldn’t I?” Luisa interrupts.  
The doctor nods, hesitantly. “You could, but it would be a pretty big coincidence,” she responds. “We’d have to check your HLA markers and compare them to Rose’s… If you’re not, we’ll look in our donor registry, and if that still doesn’t work, we wait.” 

“What about cord blood?” Luisa asks, a split-second idea forming in her mind, still lying dormant in there from her days as an obstetrician. Looking at her, Rose can practically see her gears churning.  
“Cord blood is an option, and doesn’t need to be a perfect match,” the doctor nods.  
Luisa puts a hand on her belly. “We’re going to have some not too long from now, if we don’t find a donor first.”  
“That is an option,” the doctor nods. “Hopefully, we won’t still be looking for a donor by then, but yes.”  
“It won’t hurt the baby, right?” Rose asks.  
“Not at all,” her doctor reassures her. “We take the stem cells from the umbilical cord and from the placenta, no harm at all to Baby or to Mom.”  
Rose nods, that makes her feel better. “Good talk, Doc,” she nods. “Is that all?”  
“That is all,” the doctor settles. “Oh, we’re not releasing you yet, Rose. I want to keep an eye on your blood counts.” 

Now she’s the one who’s upset, and it’s Luisa’s turn to calm her down and squeeze her hand. “It’s okay, we can handle a few more days here,” she starts.  
“I don’t want to handle another day here,” Rose sighs.  
“You can leave against medical advice, if you really–” the doctor starts, before Luisa stops her, shaking her head.  
“Don’t tell her that,” she hisses. “She’ll do it.”  
Rose sighs dramatically again. “I just want to go home,” she repeats firmly, her gaze locked with her doctor’s. She could keep up the eye contact for hours.  
“I can’t stop you,” the doctor replies. “You’ll have to sign an AMA form; Against Medical Advice, but you can go. If you do, I’d advise lots of rest, and fluids, and a mask if you’re going out of the house.”  
Oh great, Rose wearing a mask, Luisa’s favourite thing.  
“Perfect, where do I sign?” Rose asks stubbornly.  
“Rose…” Luisa starts, though she knows it’s a moot point. Rose is going home.  
“Luisa, I am–”  
“Don’t you pull the ‘I’m leaving, are you coming with me’ line!” Luisa scolds her. “Let’s go. Thank you, Dr. Jandl, for the advice Rose isn’t taking.”  
The doctor just shakes her head and laughs. “Good luck, ladies. Keep yourself safe, Rose.”

-

Yeah, Rose wore a mask that night, but not the mask her doctor had wanted her to.  
“It’s supposed to help moisturize,” Rose reads from the tube the thick, blue paste had come from. “I need that. You want some?”  
Luisa laughs and shakes her head.  
“C’mon, face masks are good for relaxing. We both need to relax,” Rose reminds her. “Put your pajamas on, we’ll put face masks on, and I’ll brush your hair and rub your feet.”  
“You’re offering to rub my feet?” Luisa asks, in adoration but also disbelief. “I’m in.” She dashes up the stairs (as much as she can dash) to put her pajamas on.

She comes back downstairs with her PJs on and her makeup off; and Rose thinks this is her favourite version of Luisa, because (other than the naked in bed version), it was the only one she got truly to herself, away from the rest of the world. 

“I love you,” Rose says. The words fly out of her mouth easier than they ever have, and make her smile too.  
“I love you too,” Luisa smiles. 

Their night, with face masks and feet rubs, and Luisa falling asleep while Rose brushed her hair, was one of the last nights they would have just them two, a family of two instead of the soon three; though, of course, neither of them could expect that time to come as soon as it did. 

-

“I don’t like you wearing that mask,” Rose pouts, eyeing her girlfriend and the ugly green surgical mask covering her nose and mouth.  
“Sounds like something I’ve said to you before, yet you never listened,” Luisa mumbles, her voice off. It wasn’t because of the mask, though. It was because of the ugly cold she was developing. “Just like you, I have good reason. I have to wear the mask so my sickness doesn’t spread to you. For me, it’s a cold, for you, it’s pneumonia. You can’t get pneumonia.”  
“Pneumonia,” Rose exclaims under her breath, mocking Luisa a little; interrupted by a violent sneeze. She backs away a little, only half faking disgust.  
“It’s not that bad,” Luisa argues, contrary to the evidence of otherwise. “I’m not that sick, it’s fine.”  
“Babe,” Rose argues back lightly, “Lay down, I’m gonna make you tea and get you a cold towel, the way you do for me.” She’s happy to be the one in charge right now, that’s such a rarity lately, as she’s been so vulnerable, which is something she still despises. She wants to be the one in control, always.  
“You shouldn’t even be near me, Rose,” Luisa sighs half-heartedly. “You can’t risk getting pneumonia.”  
“That’s what the mask is for,” Rose protests.  
But Luisa just shakes her head. “I’m gonna call Chris, one of us should stay with him, just for a few days, until all this blows over. It’s too risky, babe.”

A few days later, while Rose is lying on Chris’ couch feeling sorry for herself, Luisa calls, and Rose jumps for the phone. “I don’t mean to alarm you,” Luisa starts, barely getting those few words out before Rose interrupts her.  
“What? What is it?” she asks quickly, obviously much less calm than Luisa is.  
She takes a deep breath. “I’m in the car, I’m on my way to the hospital, I think I’m having contractions.”  
“Contractions?!” Rose asks. “Like, real contractions, or just the Brandon-Higgs ones?!”  
Luisa laughs at her cute fiancee’s miswording. “Braxton-Hicks,” she corrects her. “But these aren’t Braxton-Hicks, these are real, I think. I’m just going to get them checked out, you don’t need to rush over. They’re still really far apart, I’m okay.”  
“Well of course we’re rushing over!” Rose exclaims, appalled Luisa would even think otherwise. “Chris!” she calls, her voice echoing through his small apartment. “We have to go to the hospital, Luisa’s in labour!”

“Rose, please stop drumming your fingers on the car door! I’m going as fast as I can, but we won’t be any good to Luisa if we end up in a car crash.” Chris sighs. “I am just as nervous as you are, gorgeous…“  
Rose doesn’t answer him but reluctantly stops, balling her hand into a tense fist instead. She is looking out of the window, not at Chris. She has to strongly focus on breathing slowly and not jump out of this snail of a car to run the rest of the way to the hospital.  
“She is going to be alright,” Chris tries again, reaching his hand over to pat Rose’s thigh.  
When the huge hospital building is finally in sight, Rose removes her seatbelt, hand ready on the door. If he didn’t know her, Chris would’ve tried to talk her into putting her seatbelt back on, since they still had at least three minutes of driving ahead, but he does, so he doesn’t waste his breath.

“You can’t see her, Rose, I am so sorry. The risk of infection is way too high for you up in labour and delivery, and Luisa still has a cold,” Dr. Jandl informs them, empathy in her voice as she puts a hand on her patient’s shoulder. She had heard of Luisa being admitted because of contractions and had awaited Rose and Chris in the lobby already, waiting with one of the labour nurses in tow. First thing she had strictly gone through with was making Rose wear a mask, before she even answered any of her questions.  
“I have to see her. I… She needs me, please!” Rose begs.  
In that moment an older, grey-haired doctor approaches them quickly, asking the nurse to come with him.  
“What’s going on?” Rose and her doctor ask at the same time.  
“The baby is coming right now!” is all they get to hear, before the obstetrician and the nurse disappear in the closed off hallway leading to the ORs.  
Chris steps forward, standing beside a panicking Rose again.  
“I-It’s… She’s too early!” Rose stammers, colour draining from her face. Her head is spinning, her hands start shaking.  
“Your daughter is a bit early, yes, but she isn’t in a critical stage. She will be able to breathe on her own, probably even nurse,” the friendly doctor tries to calm Rose. “It’s been extremely stressful for Luisa and you these past few weeks, and stress can trigger the body to deliver a baby sooner.”  
“They will be okay, gorgeous, they’re going to be just fine!” Chris joins in.  
“This is all my fault,” Rose whispers, as the world goes black for her.  
Chris realizes what is happening fast enough to catch her and prevent her from hitting her head on the edge of the chair behind her.

-

The rhythmic beeping of the machine monitoring her own heartbeat brings Rose back slowly.  
What happened? Where was she?  
“Luisa,” she hears herself say, her voice sounding weak. The room in front of her seems familiar, yet Rose sees it like through thick fog.  
Trying to get control over her senses again she looks around, making out an IV pole. The tube leads to her chest, see through liquid steadily dripping from the IV bag.  
“Hey,” a voice answers her, but it isn’t Luisa. “Good morning.”  
“It’s morning?” Rose groans, before realizing what that means. “I missed it,” she whispers. “I missed it.”  
“It isn’t morning, but, you did,” the nurse answers hesitantly. “Your fiancee gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, via cesarean section, at 3:29 pm. 5 pounds 1 ounce and 16.4 inches long, which is very good for being five weeks early. She’s in the NICU now being monitored. Mom is recovering well; the C section took her by surprise, but she was a real trooper.”  
Rose breathes a sigh of relief that everyone’s okay, but she can’t help the ache in her heart that tells her she should’ve been there. Luisa had surgery and she wasn’t there to hold her hand, and that made her upset. But they had a daughter. She had a daughter. The thought of that makes her feel even more loopy. “Why the C section?” she asks, stumbling on her voice in the fog she still felt and saw in the room.  
“Luisa’s blood pressure was rising while your baby’s was dropping,” the nurse exclaims. “It was making vaginal delivery very difficult and very risky for everyone. But, all is well now, I promise. Mom and Baby are both resting.”  
Rose smiles again. “Can I see them?”  
The nurse hesitates. “Your oncologist will be by soon, ask her. Until then, congratulations, Mama.”  
That smile’s still on Rose’s face, her heart’s still glowing; but really wants to see her baby and Luisa now. 

She dozes off waiting for her doctor to come in, dreaming of what was to come for her and her sweet baby. “Rose,” she hears, as she’s waking up. “Hey, new mama, wake up, we gotta talk for a minute.”  
She’s not thrilled to hear her doctor’s voice, she’d rather be hearing Luisa’s.  
“Hi Dr. Jandl,” she mumbles, “Can I go see Luisa and our baby now?”  
The doctor smiles. “You can see your baby, yes. Luisa won’t be allowed in the NICU since she still has a cold, and I would very much advise you to not pick up that cold from her either. I’d like to talk to you about our next steps first, if you don’t mind.”  
“Make it quick,” Rose urges.  
“Of course,” the doctor obliges. “We have successfully harvested the cord blood from your daughter’s delivery. We have to do one more round of chemo, and then we can do our stem cell transplant and pray for the best. This should be it, Rose, I’m seeing an end in sight.”  
Rose is glad to hear that, she really is, but there’s still only one thing on her mind.  
“Yes, I’ll take you up to the nursery now,” the doctor laughs. “I’m really happy for you guys,” she mentions, helping Rose into a wheelchair.  
“Thanks, doc,” Rose smiles. 

It’s a quiet elevator ride up to the pediatric floor of the hospital, Rose is annoyed she has to wear a mask, but she can’t risk anything right now, not if she wanted to be with Mia. So, for her daughter, she would wear the stupid mask.  
“Your sperm donor, the baby’s father, is in there with her,” Dr. Jandl says.  
“Our who?” Rose blurts out, knowing there’s no one to hear her in the elevator.  
The doctor chuckles. “Chris,” she answers, knowing fully well Chris wasn’t their sperm donor. “He convinced the NICU staff that he was your daughter’s dad so they’d let him in. I know he’s not, but I won’t tell them that.”  
Rose smiles and shakes her head. Chris, damnit, where’d they get him? 

His face lights up when he sees Rose. “Gorgeous, you have to meet her, she is perfect,” he exclaims and walks towards Rose and the doctor. “Congratulations on your baby girl, Rose! Or should I say Mom?” he cheers and wraps her in a big hug, half lifting her out of the wheelchair.  
“Thanks Chris, or would you rather me call you Dad? You liar!” Rose answers, unable to keep the big, bright smile off her face, as she tries to escape his embrace. She’d never get used to anyone, except Luisa of course, hugging her, but she is able to endure it by now. “I didn’t come to be held by you, but to hold Mia actually,” she smirks.  
“I’ll leave you to it,” Dr. Jandl smiles. “The nurse or Chris can take you back to your room, Rose. Don’t exhaust yourself too much, okay? And congrats again!” she adds, quietly closing the door behind her as she makes a swift exit.

“Have you seen Luisa?” Rose asks a little nervously after the doctor has left them.  
“I was with her when they decided she needed the C-Section. I held her hand for you… She was really brave and when I went back to see her, half an hour ago or so, she was finally willing to sleep a little,” he explains and helps Rose get up, grabbing her hand and leading her towards one of the incubators.  
“Mia Rose Alver?” Rose smiles, reading the name on the incubator, before she dares to take a look inside. “I hope you told my dear fiancee that she’s totally mad naming our daughter after me without even asking me first.”  
“She didn’t exactly have time to ask you, and I suspect Luisa’s had that idea in her head for a while already… Didn’t take her long to tell them your ladybug’s full name,” Chris grins. Luisa had actually told him a while ago that she would like to give Mia ‘Rose’ as a middle name, since her last name would be Alver, but she was certain Rose would never voluntarily agree to that.

“She’s unbelievable… Have I told you I love her?” Rose murmurs and takes a deep breath, finally stepping close enough to see her baby girl. She’s still holding the breath in her lungs, unable to let go. “She is beautiful,” she finally exhales. “But so tiny,” she adds, not daring to reach her hand into the incubator and touch the little human yet.  
“She’s healthy though; yes a bit smaller than the other babies maybe, but Mia’s okay, Rose,” Chris calms. “You can touch her; you can go ahead, mama. Or we can get a nurse to help you hold her.”  
“No, I… She’s sleeping, I-I don’t want to disturb her,” Rose stammers, shaking her head quickly and taking a step back.  
“Gorgeous, you look a little scared. Hey, it’s alright! She will still be asleep when you pick her up.” Chris tries to explain. “You won’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re worried about?” he adds, gently pushing Rose forward again.  
She has to admit, she is scared to hurt this tiny creature. She has close to no experience with babies, she couldn’t remember ever having held Derek when he was a baby; and she simply hadn’t cared too much back when baby Mateo had been handed to her.

But this, this was different. This was her tiny creature, hers and Luisa’s. Their child. The thought makes her dizzy, she can feel a lot of responsibility resting on her shoulders now, as she watches her small daughter sleep.

“Nurse,” Chris asks, suddenly disturbing Rose in her pondering. “Can we let Mama hold the baby?” A nearby, sweet nurse nods, carefully picks up Mia, and hands her to an unprepared Rose.  
“Chris! I didn’t say yes to this!” Rose almost yells, awkwardly wrapping her hands around the warm, red body, wearing nothing but a diaper.  
“Okay, okay Rose, you have to hold her head, gorgeous! She can’t hold it up herself yet!” Chris presses, while the nurse quickly guides one of the shaking, freckled hands up to Mia’s head. “Let me guess, Rosie, you don’t have a lot of experience with kids?” he teases a still anxious looking Rose.  
“She’s so light… I thought she’d be heavier,” she whispers in awe. She hadn’t expected to be this overwhelmed upon seeing Mia for the first time.

Just when Rose is slowly getting used to the feeling of Mia’s warm, feather-light body in her hands, the little girl starts squirming and opens her eyes, looking at her ‘other’ mom for the first time.  
Rose’s eyes meet unfocused but almost identically vivid blue eyes.  
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say she inherited your eyes…” Chris says, smiling at Rose, who still looks a little inept holding Mia, but returns his smile happily. She may have cried, in this moment, if she were a crier. 

Behind the glass beside them, there’s a slight pound, the sound of a palm pressing against the glass. Rose hadn’t really heard it, but she feels her being close anyways.

Turning around she spots Luisa behind the window, lying in a hospital bed, sitting up as much as she can, her hand pressed flat to the glass, the other covering her mouth in awe. She looks pretty pale and tired, but when Rose turns to her holding their little daughter, her mouth curls up into a big, bright smile and she can’t help feel tears filling her eyes.  
Luisa watches Rose intently, as she hands Mia overly careful to the nurse and comes up to the window. Her hand trembles like crazy, when she puts it against Luisa’s on the glass.  
“I am so proud of you, Lu! I love you.” she can’t hear Rose’s voice through the thick glass, but Luisa doesn’t have any trouble reading her lips. The whole situation reminds them both strongly of Rose’s prison days, when all they could do was press their hands against their side of the see through barrier that was keeping them from feeling each other and they would say the last three words silently, receiver already hung up. Honestly, when Rose had had one of her outbursts she would also hang up on Luisa for a moment back then, venting her anger inaudibly for Luisa. Or at least she thought so, while Luisa understood almost every word since lipreading had been her favourite game as a kid.  
Knowing Rose had a little more trouble with it, Luisa gestures with her other hand, imitating her fiancee’s trembling while she talks to her now.  
“Are you okay, Rose? Chris told me you fainted…” she asks, eyebrows knitting together with worry, while she stares longingly into her love’s sparkling blue eyes, .  
“I’m okay, more than okay!” Rose says, nodding her head excitedly and breathes against the glass, starting to write down something.  
"Mia Rose. Really?"  
Luisa chuckles and nods her head in return.  
“Really.” she whispers and has trouble holding her tears back again, when Rose draws a little heart beside the name.  
“11/11 - make a wish Luisa!” Rose beams at her through the glass and Luisa knows exactly what she’s wishing for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the world Mia Rose Alver! ♡ Born November 11th at 3:29pm, and so very loved by her moms, her uncle Chris, and all of us (including Cate and I!)
> 
> "Hello, I've been waiting for you  
> I didn't know if you'd recognize my voice  
> Cause I've been whispering your name again and again  
> I've been imagining this day and I'll never be the same  
> Welcome home
> 
> You belong, you are loved, you are wanted, you're not alone  
> I've missed you so  
> Welcome home" ♡


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And there she is. Mia is real, and Rose is finally able to let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tying up some loose ends after Mia's birth! So happy she's here and both her moms get to spend time with her. <3 The forecast for this chapter is a nice day of sunshine, before the next chapter of mixed sun and rain.... Enjoy!

“Luisa...”   
“What, Rose?” Luisa mumbles, still asleep. “Wait, Rose? What are you doing here?”   
“I just wanted to come say hi before my transplant,” Rose whispers.  
“I’m gonna be in your room when you get the transplant, babe,” Luisa mumbles, her eyes still closed. “Can we can talk then? I’m so tired… ”   
There’s a pause, Luisa probably falls back asleep.  
“I just… before, the transplant, I just wanted to see you,” Rose continues. “And, I’m considering stealing Mia from the nursery so I can see her too.”  
“We’re both going to be there during the transplant,” Luisa reminds her, “But okay, I’m not complaining.” 

Rose comes back in, a few minutes later, pushing their baby in a bassinet. “Mia,” she whispers, lifting the baby up much more confidently already, “are we gonna wake Mama up?”  
Luisa smiles and scoots over a little so Rose has room to sit on the bed with their baby in her arms. She’d really become a natural over the past few days, especially since Mia had been moved out of the NICU yesterday afternoon and into the normal nursery. Her and Luisa would both be released from the hospital tonight. Rose had to stay a little bit longer though, just a few more days after her transplant.   
“I love you both so much,” Rose says. “I just, need you to know that, Lu.”   
“Of course I know that,” Luisa responds slowly. “What’s wrong, why are you being all early morning sentimental?”  
“No reason,” Rose objects, not taking her eyes off Mia. “I just needed to get it out. The transplant’s got me thinking, I guess.”   
“Rose,” Luisa starts, putting a hand on her face. “You know that nothing’s going to go wrong with the transplant, right? It’s just an infusion, it’s the start of something really, really great. It could send you into remission, it’s a really good thing.”   
“I know that, I know,” Rose answers gently. “I just… I don’t know, I just had to tell you that I love you, both of you. And these past few days with our daughter, even though we’ve all been separated, have been really, really great and I hope we get a lot more of them.”  
“We will, we will,” Luisa nods. “This transplant’s going to fix things for us, Rose. It’s going to fix you.”   
Rose nestles into bed tighter and nods, making sure not to disrupt Mia, barely big enough to say she was on both her mom's’ laps right now. 

Their peaceful moment is soon interrupted by a smiling doctor standing in the doorway, Rose’s doctor. “When you weren’t in your room I thought this was where I’d find you,” she grins. She approaches them, peering at the baby. “Guys, she is lovely,” she says.  
“You can understand why I snuck out then,” Rose says, her smile giving off sunlight.   
The doctor laughs and nods. “Unfortunately, I have to snatch you away, Rose. Luisa and Mia can come back later though when we have everything set up. It’s your big day, guys!”  
Luisa smiles, taking the baby into her arms so Rose can get up and get into the wheelchair Dr. Jandl had brought with her; of course Rose hadn’t come here in one.  
“I’ll see you later,” Luisa tells her love, kissing her warm, freckled cheek. 

Rose smiles at her fiancee and their daughter one last time, admitting the sight to memory, before she sits down and lets Dr. Jandl wheel her back to the elevator and back to the oncology floor. She really hoped today would be as magical as everyone said it would be; she needed her life back. Looking at that beautiful baby she’d had in her lap just a few minutes ago, she could never imagine leaving her. So today better work.

-

“Don’t be nervous, Rose,” Dr. Jandl calms her with a smile and an encouraging hand on her shoulder. “It’s just an infusion. You shouldn’t even feel too bad during this. It’ll rob your body a lot of energy once it’s already in your system and starting to work, but not yet,” she adds, feeling an urge to prepare her patient for what’s to come anyways.  
“I’m not nervous,” Rose lies half-heartedly, still chewing on her bottom lip, and therefore proving her oncologist otherwise. “But Luisa should be here already… what if something–”  
Just in that moment there’s a short knock on the door, before Luisa appears with a smile, pushing a stroller. “Hey babe, sorry we’re a little late! Someone had to get changed first!” she whispers.  
Rose immediately tries to sit up, in order to get a better look on Mia, but is gently pushed back into the pillows by her doctor.  
“But–” Rose starts, only to give in, when Luisa comes to the other side of the bed and takes Mia out of her seat before sitting down, giving Rose the chance to see Mia while staying in a lying position.  
“Hi ladybug,” Rose whispers and reaches her hand out to gently stroke over Mia’s chubby cheek. She knows it’s only been a little over an hour since she’d last seen her, but she had actually missed their little one.

Her fears of not being able to love anyone except Luisa had vanished ever since she’d held their tiny human for the first time and Rose couldn’t be more glad about that. It gives her a lot of strength honestly, to be responsible for someone who is even weaker than her right now. She catches herself thinking that, and she does know it’s a “typical Rose” thing to think, as Luisa would say, but she mentally shrugs it off. That thought might help her to finally overcome cancer, so even Luisa would probably allow her to think like that.  
“Do you want to hold her?” Luisa asks and interrupts her fiancee in her intense pondering. “I’ll put her on your chest. Just be careful she doesn’t grab the infusion,” she continues after Rose nodded happily and lifts the tiny body onto her chest.  
Mia’s warm head lies on the bare skin under Rose’s collarbone, since she had to move her shirt down for the doctor to access her port. That skin to skin contact makes goosebumps appear all over her body and she is honestly stunned. She doesn’t even feel annoyed as Mia drools on her a little. 

Rose realizes she must’ve fallen asleep and shoots awake upon hearing Mia’s rather powerful screaming after unsuccessfully searching her other mommy’s chest for a source of milk. The baby isn’t really impressed by the sudden movement and starts wailing even louder, not knowing she’s just about giving one of her mothers a panic attack right now.  
“What– Luisa! What’s wrong with her? Did I hurt her?” Rose cries out, grabbing Mia carefully again, holding her up like baby Simba to check for any twisted limbs (still careful to support her head, though).  
“She’s not as sensitive as you think, Rose,” Luisa laughs, already setting up to feed. “What else could possibly cause her crying? Any ideas, Mom?” she asks, looking at her love, who’s still white as a wall from the shock, and grins mischievously.  
“I… I don’t know, help me, Lu!” Rose whines and holds a squirming Mia, little face all red from screaming, in Luisa’s direction, who takes her into her arms.  
While Rose nestles herself deeper into her blanket, half hiding, half watching their baby girl scream with her own face adorably squinched up in a mixture of pain and pity, Luisa just shakes her head at her fiancee and starts breastfeeding. 

“Didn’t your fancy book tell you the first reason your infant daughter’s crying might be the fact that she’s hungry?” Luisa giggles, now obviously mocking Rose in the sudden silence of the room, only interrupted by greedy sucking and gulping noises from Mia’s direction.  
“ … It didn’t really talk about the things normal moms would consider obvious,” Rose replies a little ashamed and blushes.  
“Oh, darling, it’s okay. Everything in time. Right now, Mia and I need you to get well,” Luisa declares and squeezes Rose’s hand again.

-

A couple short hours later, Luisa is tiptoeing back into Rose’s room. When she realizes Rose is lying there awake, she sighs and plops down on her bed.  
“Is she all ready to go home?” Rose asks, her voice thick with the sloth of sleep.   
“Yeah, she’s ready,” Luisa replies hesitantly, adjusting Mia’s seatbelt and her hat. “I don’t know if I’m ready, but, she’s ready.”   
“Is something wrong?” Rose asks, concerned. “Is it about your stitches, o-or your bleeding? You probably don’t have to go–”   
“No, no, it’s not about me,” Luisa mumbles, shyly tucking her hair behind her ear. “I don’t think I’m ready to take Mia home yet.”  
“Wh-” Rose starts, confused, “Why not, where’s this coming from? Talk to me.” She puts a hand on Luisa’s thigh, trying to coax her into speaking her mind.   
“What if I’m not ready?” Luisa admits. “I never bargained to do this alone. And you’re not coming with us, like you said you would, and of course I don’t blame you at all, just…”  
“Luisa,” Rose exclaims under her breath. “You are going to be a great mom and you are one hundred percent ready, I don’t have any doubts at all about that. And I’ll be home soon. I don’t know how much help I’d even be…” Rose trails off, she doesn’t think Luisa’s listening as she runs a finger along their sleeping baby’s cheek. “Take her out, I know you want to,” Rose tells her.  
“She’s sleeping,” Luisa argues half-heartedly, “I don’t want to wake her up.”   
“The expression ‘sleeping like a baby’ exists for a reason,” Rose reasons. “Take her out.” 

She doesn’t have to push too hard, Luisa gives in easily and gently unbuckles Mia from her seat and scoops her up, handing her to Rose.   
Rose smiles down at the baby on her chest and then at her fiancee. “I can’t get over how much she looks like you,” she muses.  
Luisa smiles, wrapping an arm around her baby and snuggling into her fiancee. She doesn’t want to leave her here, she wants to keep her family together as much as possible. She loved the feeling of finally belonging in a family, it’d been a long time since she’d felt that.

“Alrighty, who’s ready to go home?!” Chris announces, strutting into the room, swinging his keys. “Oh, sorry,” he whispers, spotting the sleeping baby, and a possibly sleeping Luisa, he can’t tell from where he’s standing.  
Rose waves her hand dismissively, shaking her head. “Are we not…” he starts.   
“We’re going,” Luisa mumbles, “I just had to whine first, but I’m okay now.” She sits up with a pout and a sigh, taking Mia back from Rose. Rose pulls away at the last possible second, a smile on her face. “Bye, bug, I’ll be home soon,” she whispers. “Lu, I will be home soon,” she repeats, more serious.   
Luisa nods, strapping Mia back into her car seat, kissing her cheek, and then kissing Rose’s.   
“Bye Rose,” Chris whispers, on his way out.   
“Bye Chris,” Rose smiles. “Take care of my girls,” she adds quietly, she isn’t sure if Chris heard. But she knows he will.

-

Luisa feels a little guilty while she’s fixing pink and purple balloons on the stairs. During the last three days at home with Mia, she had only visited Rose in hospital once… She had expected it to be stressful when she had been discharged from hospital with their daughter, but not as much a mess of diapers, full washing machines and sleepless nights as it turned out to be. Though they had talked on the phone a lot, Luisa wasn’t satisfied with herself and her time-management, and therefore not even Rose had been capable of convincing her that it was fine because she’d be home soon anyways.  
“Honestly Lu, my day consists of sleeping and fighting nurses who try to force food into me,” Rose had assured her with a warm, yet sleepy giggle. “I am just glad I’ll be home with you two tomorrow… and able to argue about the eating problem with you again.”  
Luisa smiles to herself, while she is fixing the banner saying, “Happy One Week Birthday, Baby!” on the stairs between the balloons. Underneath that line she had added another message herself with permanent marker: “And Welcome Home, Mommy!”

Precisely 25 minutes later Luisa shoots up from the couch, hearing Mia cry for food upstairs. Taking a look at the clock on the wall in the living room, Luisa mentally thanks Mia for waking up early or she would’ve been most ungracefully passed out on the couch still when Chris would’ve arrived home with Rose.

Just when her daughter seems to be all done and satisfied, the doorbell rings, causing Luisa to get butterflies in her stomach. She had missed her. Like, a lot.

Opening the door Luisa already knows this won’t go down without a few happy tears on her side.  
“Hi-” is all Rose can get out before she is wrapped in a crushing hug, Luisa’s head pressed against her shoulder, Mia squirming between them. “Hey Lu, it’s not like I’ve been gone for years! And you’re squishing our daughter,” she laughs, trying to put a little more space between Luisa and herself; she’s honestly worried Mia isn’t able to breathe.  
“I missed you,” Luisa sighs, when Rose gently cups her face with her freckled hands and leans in for a soft kiss.  
“I missed you too,” she replies, “so much. And you too, ladybug.”  
Right away Luisa hands her to Rose, so she can finally greet Chris who’s been standing behind, silently watching their reunion, carrying Rose’s bag (and kind of fighting tears himself).  
“You three are too perfect, have I told you that before?” he sighs, when Luisa wraps him in a hug.  
“Thank you so much! For picking her up, for always being there for us, for everything really,” Luisa whispers and smiles at the man she considered pretty much her best friend by now. “Do you want to come in? I was going to make some tea and I got cake,” she asks him.  
“I’m sorry sweetie, I have to get back to work… But I’ll stop by during the next few days to see how my favourite little family is doing! I’ll text,” Chris answers, “Now go and enjoy being together again, lovebirds! And Rosalie– don’t you fall down the stairs or do anything stupid, alright? Listen to your wife to be, act chill and lay low like your Doc told you,” he adds with a grin, as he sees Rose roll her eyes at him.

“You are mad, Lu!” comes Rose’s voice from the hallway, as Luisa closes the front door. “Mad! Did you climb around on the stairs to put up balloons and cheesy messages when you just had a C-section a week ago?! We’re glad I’m back home so I can keep an eye on you,” she grins, taking the seriousness out of her words.  
“Cheesy? Really? Is that all you have to say about my surprise? All the effort–” Luisa pouts, but she’s cut off by Rose pressing their lips together.  
“I love it. Thank you,” she smiles into the kiss.

Later that day, when Mia is asleep, Luisa and Rose finally get to sit down on the couch; wrapping themselves in a blanket, and they just hold each other quietly for a while.  
“How are you feeling, actually?” Luisa finally breaks the silence, stroking Rose’s cheek. “Do you feel any different? A bit stronger already?” she goes on nervously.  
“I’m doing good. I’m really tired right now and a little dizzy, though that’s because I haven’t been up much lately, but a lot today… “ Rose tells her, while she is stroking gingerly over her love’s stomach, not firm and round like it used to be, but not yet flat again either.  
“But do you feel anything?” Luisa asks again and searches for Rose’s eyes, which seem to avoid her. “Rose?” she carefully demands, tipping Rose’s chin towards her with a finger, forcing her to look her in the eyes.  
“I don’t know… I don’t feel any different yet, I don’t think. We just have to wait for the results; 8 days, Lu,” Rose tries to calm Luisa, without much success. “Let’s not talk about that until then, okay? All I want right now is to be at home with you and Mia and to enjoy our time together, I’m fed up with hospitals and doctors and infusions,” she murmurs, looking into her lover’s warm brown eyes. Luisa nods and scoots closer to Rose on the couch, hugging her thin body tightly and they both lapse back into a more or less comfortable silence.

Luisa soon falls asleep, snuggled into Rose’s side, who thinks that if she’d believe in a God, she’d be thanking him for this moment right now. With the feeling of her fiancee’s rhythmic breath on her neck, Rose closes her eyes too for a while, not quite able to fall asleep, but too tired to move. She listens to the quiet house, trying to maybe make out a noise coming from the tiny human being, lying in a cozy bed upstairs. It’s still so unreal to Rose, she can’t believe Mia, her and Luisa’s daughter, actually exists, until she sees her again, feels the warm, light body in her arms.

Carefully, Rose untangles herself from her love’s sleeping form and tiptoes out of the living room, up the staircase, heading towards the first door after their bedroom.  
‘Mia’ is displayed in purple letters on the door, a bunch of pink ladybugs painted around the name.  
Rose hesitates and stands still, hand ready to push open the door, but her mind not yet ready for the image that is going to unfold itself inside. The gloomy hallway around her is spinning, she can’t grasp a clear thought and she’s briefly sure she has a concerningly high fever again, until she brings her other hand up to her forehead. Surprisingly, her temperature does seem to be normal. Shaking the (in her opinion childish) fears off, Rose reminds herself of the day she painted her daughter’s name and the bugs on this very door.   
Stepping inside as quietly as possible, she allows her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room, light only coming from the moon shaped night light on the wall, before she steps forward to peek into the white baby crib.

And there she is. Mia is real, and Rose is finally able to let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding back.

Since she’s not exactly frightened of holding their baby anymore, she can’t resist picking Mia up and giving her a soft kiss to her dark hair.  
After looking at her tiny beautiful face for a minute, Rose carries Mia over to the small, white couch by the window, where she sits down with her and wraps the pink blanket that lay neatly folded on it around her little daughter and herself. Sitting right there, with Mia safely slumbering in her protective arms, Rose feels more content than she ever has before.

Luisa wakes up confusedly, when she doesn’t find Rose beside her anymore. The house is quiet and a quick look at the clock tells her it’s almost 10pm. Knowing Mia will be up for food soon, Luisa makes her way up to her room, and comes just in time to witness the most adorable scene she could find.

Rose has curled herself protectively around Mia, both of them soundly asleep on the way too small sofa, covered by a blanket that hides most of their bodies, with the exception of one of Rose’s long, pale legs dangling over the edge.  
Luisa smiles so hard her cheeks hurt, and snaps a few pictures with her phone. She’s not willing to forget this image of pure fluff and cuteness. After, she sits down on the carpet in front of her two loves and gently brushes her fingers over Mia’s cheek first, and then Rose’s.  
“I thought I’d better wake you before Mia’s crying does,” Luisa whispers, when Rose’s eyelids start to flutter. “Rose, I love you so much… And I am so, so stupidly happy right now,” she adds with a big, sentimental smile.  
Rose gives her a sleepy yet happy smile back, murmuring something sounding vaguely like ‘Love you too’, before she yawns and sits up with Mia again.  
“This couch was definitely not designed for me to fall asleep on it.” she moans while she stretches her aching legs.  
“The picture I took of you two is totally worth it though,” Luisa tells her and presses a kiss to each of her fiancee’s pale, skinny knees.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m never going to let you go,” Luisa whimpers, desperation clearly audible in her voice.   
> “Then I’m never going to go,” Rose answers simply.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "So take from me  
> What you want, what you need  
> Take from me  
> Whatever you want, whatever you need  
> But lover, please stay with me..."

Luisa sighs and smoothes her hair and her shirt down. She looks to the little blob of jelly laying in the covers on her bed, adorned in a pink onesie and a pink bow. Luisa is also wearing a pink t-shirt, along with her jeans that finally fit her again. “Ready for picture day, Mia? Are you ready for picture day?” She scoops her up and plants a series of kisses on her cheek before putting her lipstick on. “When Mommy gets out of the bathroom, we’ll go get our pictures taken, okay? Okay?” She raps on the bathroom door. “Rose? You okay?” 

In the bathroom, Rose is sitting on the counter, putting makeup on. “I just need a few more minutes,” she answers.   
Luisa smirks and shakes her head. It amused her that it almost took her the same amount of time to get ready now as it did when she used to do her hair every morning. “Okay, but if you don’t get a move on, we’re gonna be late,” she reminds her.  
“I know,” Rose answers, “Don’t worry about it, we won’t be late.”   
Luisa smiles. Their life feels kind of normal right now, but better because of the baby nestled in her arms.

Rose emerges from the bathroom a few moments later, her hands awkwardly wiping at her jeans, held on by a fairly tight belt. She is also wearing a pink t-shirt, the photographer had insisted on the whole family wearing shades of the same colour, and pink lipstick.   
“You look beautiful,” Luisa smiles, getting up from their bed and meeting her in the doorway of the bathroom.  
Rose smiles, a little uneasily. She doesn’t feel the most confident with her current appearance, but she is learning to embrace the shiny bald head and skeleton body a little more everyday. She’d been iffy when Luisa had suggested professional family pictures, she wouldn’t lie, but she wanted nice pictures of her and her beautiful fiancee and their baby, who was too cute for words. So, she’d spent a little extra time putting on light makeup and drawing on her eyebrows and make herself feel just as beautiful as she used to. It wasn’t fair that she didn’t have her hair and the body she once had, nor the confidence she used to have, but she would not let it stop her from making these memories with her family.   
“So do you,” Rose smiles, her fingers lacing in her love’s curls. “We are going to have the best family photos in the world,” she exclaims. She wants to kiss Luisa and Mia both, but the lipstick keeps her from doing so.   
Luisa doesn’t care about lipstick, going in for Rose’s lips. She laughs as she pulls away, seeing her shade of pink smudged on Rose’s lips, mixing with Rose’s own.  
“We’ll reapply when we get there,” Rose replies hastily. 

-

“You guys are so beautiful, such a beautiful family,” the photographer tells them, snapping a few family shots, which Mia sleeps peacefully in Luisa’s arms all the way through. “So photogenic.”   
Luisa smiles, and glances down at her baby, to which the photographer snaps another quick picture. “Can we get some with just one mommy and baby now?” the photographer asks.   
“I’ll step out,” Luisa nods, gently handing the pink little princess over to her fiancee. “I have to pump.”   
Rose nods, accepting their baby and her lipstick-stained little face. 

Luisa comes back and the photographer and Rose are still working together. Rose has this great big smile again, that Luisa finds herself being mesmerized by every time anew. The photographer turns back to see her smiling too, watching Rose and Mia. “Your future wife,” the photographer starts, “She is beautiful, on the outside and on the inside, it shows right through her. The confidence, that’s beautiful too. She’s going to make a great mommy.”   
Luisa smiles. She’d never had someone compliment Rose to her, never had anyone told her, her fiancee was a good person on the inside, because no one who thought they knew her, would ever say that about her. “Thank you,” she tells her. “That means a lot to us.”   
“It’s your turn, get in there with your baby,” the photographer grins. “10 days old and already so gorgeous, just like both of her mommies.”

Rose watches with the same content admiration, thinking how beautiful her family is and how lucky she is to have them, for however long she gets, at least she gets them. The photographer sees her loving look too and can’t help but smile.  
“Okay you two, now put your little girl on the blanket for a second and let me take some pictures of just you two,” she smiles.  
Neither of them would say it, but they were glad they’d gotten this opportunity. The pictures would outlive Rose, if she had months or if she had years. Luisa could hold onto them forever.

She’ll have more than just pictures to hold onto forever, though; she’d have the real thing, her future wife. She was so, blindly, sure of that. 

\- 

Rose hates bone marrow biopsies more than anything– or so she thinks. Luisa is holding her hand again, like every time, it hurts, like every time. It’s the same procedure as always, they both know it by heart, and yet this time it’s different.  
It’s all happening nerve-wrackingly slow, the doctor seeming to take so much longer this time, even applying the thick bandaid to Rose’s hip takes him ages. At least it feels like it does.

Two hours later, Rose and Luisa find themselves sitting in Dr. Jandl’s office, Mia fast asleep in Luisa’s arms and envied by both her mothers for her incapability to comprehend the seriousness of the current situation.

The doctor shows up finally, carrying a stack of files, Rose’s results. The look on her face is enough to tell Rose, but Luisa still sits there impatiently, holding onto her hopes. It must have worked.

“Rose,” Dr Jandl starts gently. She knows the two women are in no need of a long, complicated speech right now, the faster she gets those immanent words out, the better. “The transplant didn’t work out. Your body attacked the stem cells we injected, instead of accepting and multiplying them. Your white counts are… I am going to be bloody honest with you, frighteningly low. It’s spreading; the spinal tap we did last week came back positive; there’s cancer in your spinal fluid. If we don’t do anything further, eventually the cancer will cause you to slip into organ failure.”

Rose didn’t have very long. If they’d gotten anything out of what the doctor had just told them, it was that.

The look on Luisa’s face right now, that is the actual thing Rose hates more than anything else. She’d get a needle stabbed into every possible part of her body right here and now if she wouldn’t have to see all these emotions welling up in this moment, plainly written across Luisa’s face. Her fears coming true, her dreams slowly cracking, her hopes slipping through her fingers, while she presses Mia closer to her chest, as if their infant girl could make this all go away.

Luisa had always been the optimistic one between the two of them, no matter what it was, from trivial things like the weather or tv show plots, to life and death matters like her recent transplant. But the truth had finally screamed in her face and if Rose didn’t know her better, she just might’ve thought it’d broken her. But Luisa Alver didn’t break, never completely. At least, Rose had never seen her give up, in the years she’d known her, and she was more than willing to bet it wasn’t possible. Luisa had always known how to glue her pieces back together.

“The transplant was supposed to work,” Luisa says quietly, wiping hot tears from her cheeks. She does not want to have a meltdown in the oncologist’s office, holding her baby; this was not the place for this.   
“It was supposed to work,” Dr. Jandl justifies; and it’s the truth. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t work, this was usually a sure cure for leukemia patients like Rose. But it hadn’t worked this time. “I’m sorry that it didn’t. I am truly sorry.”  
“So now we just do nothing?” Luisa asks. “The transplant didn’t make a difference, her blood counts are still deathly low, the cancer’s spreading; she isn’t in remission, she isn’t close, she’s going to go into organ failure… what do we do now?”  
Quiet until now, letting Luisa feel what she needed to feel, Rose finally speaks up. “What can we still do?”  
Dr. Jandl sighs. “I don’t know,” she admits, “I don’t know what we can do. More chemo, we could try, but Rose, you must be getting tired of that…”  
Rose nods and shrugs just a little. The message hasn’t fully reached her yet, she only worries about the tears making down their way Luisa’s cheeks at this moment.  
“Right now, I’d just say go home and spend time with your adorable baby and your beautiful wife,” Dr. Jandl continues. “You’ve seemed to have a lot of energy these past weeks, just… harness that energy and enjoy it. Mia isn’t going to be that little forever. If you’re feeling really low, we can give you blood transfusions and that’ll help.”  
Rose smiles uneasily and looks to Luisa.  
“It’s your call,” Luisa tells her, “It’s always your call. If you want to stop the chemo, or you wanna keep going…”   
“I don’t know,” Rose answers immediately. “I don’t know, I just… let’s go home now, okay? Let’s get out of here. I’ll think about it.”  
Luisa nods. “Thanks Dr. Jandl,” she mumbles quietly, as Rose straps the baby into her seat and prepares to leave.  
The doctor puts a hand on Luisa’s back and nods. 

“Luisa,” Rose starts, looking for her love’s eyes. She’s crying, Rose knows. “Luisa, darling.”   
She sniffles. “I’m sorry–”  
“Don’t be sorry,” Rose tells her, reaching her hand to rub circles on her back. “It’s… a difficult situation. But for the time being, I’m just going to do what Dr. Jandl said; I’m going to enjoy my time with you and with Mia, for as long as I can.”  
“But what if that’s not enough?” Luisa asks, her voice cracking. “Our daughter is only two weeks old, Rose, she needs her mom for a long time. I can’t raise her alone!”   
“Shh,” Rose soothes her, probably the same way she’d soothe Mia, sliding closer to her so Luisa can lean her tense, warm body against Rose’s own, thin and cooler. “I am going to try to be here for you both for as long as I can, I promise. I don’t want to go anywhere. And I swear, I won’t go anywhere until you let me go, Luisa; I won’t abandon you, I won’t abandon our daughter.”  
“I’m never going to let you go,” Luisa whimpers, desperation clearly audible in her voice.   
“Then I’m never going to go,” Rose answers simply, as stubborn and untouchable as she always sounds as she plants a kiss on her fiance’s forehead. “Please, don’t cry, I don’t want to spend our time being sad. Mia doesn’t need that, honey.”   
“But it should’ve worked,” Luisa mumbles stubbornly.   
“I know it should’ve,” Rose acknowledges, “And I’m mad too.” That’s all she can say. Unfortunately, she doesn’t get that kind of luck in her life, she doesn’t get the easy way out, the best option, the paths paved with sunlight. She gets what she’s always deserved; nothing good. But she won’t tell Luisa that, as she continues rubbing circles on her back and lightly spotting kisses on her forehead. She won’t try to break her spirit again today.

-

She continues rubbing Luisa’s back and running her fingers in her hair that night in bed. She loves Luisa’s hair– she always has, but lately she’s had more appreciation for it, especially because she doesn’t have her own to fawn over. And the pregnancy hormones had made Luisa’s already thick hair even thicker (Luisa insisted it was a pain, and unnecessary, Rose thought it was beautiful), and it had grown a lot longer than it already was over the past months (again, Luisa insisted it was a pain, and unnecessary, and that she was going to get it cut when she had some spare time; and Rose thought it was beautiful). 

And then it came loose in between Rose’s fingers, similarly to the way her hair once had. She stroked through her fiancee’s hair again, once more gaining a few more strands than normal in her fingers. “L-Luisa,” she says loudly, trying to wake her up, shaking her shoulder. “Luisa!”  
“What?” Luisa asks, waking up startled, turning over to face Rose.  
Rose shows her the loose, dark strands in her hands wordlessly. “Your hair…” she starts. “Why is it doing this, it’s coming out?”   
Luisa sighs, smiling just a little, closing her eyes again. “Because it’s way too thick and way too long?” she jokes. “It’s just postpartum hair loss, it’s normal.”  
Upon receiving nothing but silence from Rose, Luisa opens her eyes again. She reaches her hand out for Rose’s. “Hey, it’s normal, it’s okay,” she repeats.   
“I just didn’t know,” Rose settles, still a little startled, and a little disappointed sounding. “It just…”  
“It isn’t like yours,” Luisa quickly and gently argues, “I’m not sick, I’m not going to lose all my hair, just the extra that grew in with the pregnancy hormones. It’s okay.”   
Rose nods. “I got caught off guard,” she settles, almost shyly. “Sorry, go back to sleep.”   
Luisa squeezes her hand and closes her eyes again. “I like when you play with my hair, it’s relaxing,” she smiles. “Night, Rose.”  
Rose smiles, her fingers tangling in her love’s locks again, scooting close enough to kiss her forehead. “Night, Lu,” she whispers.

-

Thanksgiving passed without much event; stuck between Rose’s current state and feeling like they had nothing except their daughter to be thankful for this year, and looking at Mia and being entirely grateful for her existence. They ate pumpkin pie naked laying in that same bed and Luisa teased Rose about her limited football knowledge (conveniently, the Alabama Crimson Tide were playing, Rose’s favourite team– or should Luisa say Susanna’s favourite?) It was an okay holiday. Rose hoped it wouldn’t be their last together. 

“Luisa,” Rose urges, mouth full of pie, “We have to get a Christmas tree.”   
Luisa chuckles. “Rose, it’s Thanksgiving, it’s a little early for that.”  
“No, it’s not,” she argues in response. “And we should bake gingerbread cookies, and we should go skating–”  
“We can’t go skating, silly, I just had my stomach cut into two weeks ago, I’m supposed to be taking it easy,” Luisa laughs, ignoring the other, imminent reason they can’t go skating; Rose isn’t strong enough. “But I think we can manage baking.”  
“Do we have to wear clothes for that?” Rose grins; she’s currently really enjoying this eating pie naked in bed thing.   
Luisa just winks, and Rose giggles. Thanksgiving was okay.

-

Rose is still awake when Luisa shoots up in bed two nights later, not woken by Mia, but by a nightmare most likely. When the tears right away come back rolling down her cheeks, having only stopped earlier because she had basically fainted into the pillows, Rose wordlessly wraps her arms around Luisa’s shaking shoulders again. She kisses Luisa’s head, resting on her shoulder, and just holds her tight, and waits. There’s nothing to say, they had talked the news to death already in last few days and they were both tired of it. 

The only good time they’d had, a break from all the hard and heavy was Thanksgiving. Rose wished they could go back to that. All that was left of that day was a small pumpkin pie stain on their sheets. 

Rose isn’t sure for how long she’s been holding Luisa when she can feel the trembling stop and her breathing change from hurried gasps, to reluctant hiccups, and finally, to nothing but slow inhaling. Carefully, she guides Luisa’s head back onto the pillow, and runs her pale fingers in her beautiful brown tresses, fanned out behind her head. Her eyes look puffy, even when closed, after having cried the whole afternoon almost, and her nose is red and raw from wiping it with tissues way too often. Still, she’s the most beautiful woman to Rose, even in this moment.  
“I love you. And you don’t deserve this,” Rose whispers into a soft kiss to Luisa’s forehead.  
The alarm on her bedside table tells her it’s almost 4am. She slowly fights her way out under the heavy blankets, careful to not wake her fiancee again, and leaves the room.  
Just as she sets foot on the first step of the staircase, she hears Mia starting to cry. Turning around, Rose hurries to get there, before Mia continuously turns up the volume, in order to wake her normally sleeping moms. She enters her daughter’s bedroom and wastes no time picking her up. She descends the stairs with Mia, and when they pass the bedroom, Rose mentally crosses her fingers, hoping Mia will shut up until she can get to the kitchen with her and prepare her a bottle. Luisa had shown her how, a few days ago because Rose insisted she wanted to split nighttime feeding duty with her. She might as well make her insomnia useful.

After heating up the milk from the fridge, she sits down with Mia in her arms and listens to her hungry daughter polishing off her bottle. Once she’s finished, she right away falls back asleep and Rose gently maneuvers her into the baby carrier. She doesn’t want to take her back upstairs, she’d rather keep her here, as close as possible. The feeling of Mia’s warm body against her chest is calming her endlessly and Rose grabs some paper and a pen to finally finish what she started months ago.

Around half past six in the morning, Luisa stumbles down the stairs after neither finding Rose beside her in bed, nor Mia in her crib. She stops, stands quietly in the kitchen door for a moment, and takes in the picture of Rose sitting by the table, writing down something on a paper with Mia strapped to her chest.

“Morning,” she slurs, in order not to startle Rose, who obviously hasn’t noticed her yet.  
She still jumps a little and quickly rubs her eyes before she answers. “Hey, Lu. Did you sleep okay?”  
Upon coming closer, Luisa sees her eyes might have been wet a few seconds ago, they still look a little glassy. When Luisa reaches the table, Rose folds her paper in half and quickly stuffs it in the pocket of her bathrobe.  
“I’ve had better nights,” she admits. “What was that?” Luisa asks and places a hand on her lover’s shoulder, before she leans in for a kiss.  
“Nothing,” Rose whispers between kisses.  
“But–” Luisa starts and steps back to look Rose in the eyes.  
“Nothing that matters right now,” Rose concludes and gets up from her chair with Mia still peacefully sleeping against her chest. “We should eat breakfast, we ended up not eating anything yesterday,” she continues and walks over to the kitchen island. She grabs two bowls for yogurt and some berries from the fridge, while Luisa boils the water for their tea. They both remain silent, deep in thoughts, but the well-known routine makes them feel a little better, a little more at ease. They still have time.

“Do you want to put her on the blanket for a bit? She must be getting heavy… “ Luisa suggests after a while, breaking the silence.  
“No, I like it, it feels so nice and warm to have her this close. She’s like my personal hot water bottle,” Rose grins half-heartedly, trying to lighten up the mood a little, sitting down at the table with Mia again.  
“I have to get my stitches checked later today, remember?” Luisa frowns after sitting down herself, rubbing gently over her incision. She stares at her breakfast bowl for a moment. She really isn’t hungry at all, but it’s probably better to eat a little, and most importantly motivate Rose to eat too.  
“I do remember,” Rose answers and reluctantly plays around with her spoon. “I’ll stay here with Mia.”  
“Are you sure? Do you think… Will you...” Luisa stumbles, though she’s quickly interrupted by Rose.  
“–Manage?” Rose finishes her sentence. “I know how to make her a bottle now, she basically sleeps all day anyways and as long as you change her diaper before you leave,” Rose says with a small smile that makes Luisa want to give her left arm for the big, fireworks smile that her love used to have, even only a few days ago. Would she ever see it again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Remember all the things we wanted  
> Now all our memories, they're haunted  
> We were always meant to say goodbye..."
> 
> It was supposed to work, guys. It was supposed to work. Keep tuning in though, because for now we still have our beautiful little family <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I have to apologize to everyone prior to them reading this chapter...  
> We also shed some tears writing this, but I guess it had to come this way.  
> This chapter has some warm, fluffy parts, yet I'm afraid, the dark, sad nuances are prevalent.
> 
> Feel free to yell at either Belle or me after reading this!  
> (You will for sure yell at us after next week's chapter)

Luisa couldn’t bring herself to go home that evening after her incisions have been checked and found okay. When she exits the car, she finds herself in front of Chris’s apartment building. They hadn’t told him yet. He had called Luisa the day before they got the results and told her he’s keeping his fingers crossed for Rose, but he didn’t know yet. He probably would have guessed what was going on by now, since he hadn’t heard from them since.  
When Luisa rings the doorbell, she can feel her heart pounding in her chest.  
“Hey sweetie, come on in,” he gently says and closes the door behind Luisa. She turns around to face him again, but the words just won’t come out.  
“Do you want something to drink? Tea? Coffee?” Chris asks and puts his arm around Luisa’s shoulder, taking her to the kitchen.  
“I can think of a lot of drinks I’d rather have right now,” Luisa mumbles and sits down on one of the chairs.  
“I’m glad you didn’t go somewhere to get them then, but instead came to me,” he slowly acknowledges. “Is there anything except bad ideas in liquid form that I can offer you?”  
“Just water please,” Luisa answers, and takes a few sips, right after he places the glass in front of her. This was ridiculous, she was voluntarily filling up her tear ducts again.

“So…” Chris shakes her from her pondering.  
“It didn’t work,” Luisa spits out and feels the first of many hot tears roll down her cheek.  
“I feared that,” he sighs and rounds the table to sit down beside his shaking friend. “Where’s Rose now?”  
“At… at home, with Mia,” Luisa stutters and starts massaging her temples. All the crying of the last few days had given her a constant headache.  
“Is it… How bad is it? Is it really hopeless?” Chris tries, before trying to soothe and wrapping her in a hug. He just holds her for a while, until she finds her words again and tells him what the doctor had said.  
“And she said it’s Rose’s choice, if she still wants to do more chemo, but…” Luisa hiccups and accepts the tissue Chris hands her.  
“Okay… And did Rose decide?” he asks carefully, knowing this was a dangerous question to ask and he suspected that Luisa didn’t know the answer to it yet as well. He was right about that.  
“No, she didn’t. Or maybe she did, but we haven’t talked about it,” Luisa whispers and blows her nose. “I… I just can’t do this… without her–” she adds when she’s finished, but Chris cuts her off.  
“Right now, sweetie, Rose is still here. And that means you shouldn’t think too much about this. She’s still here, Luisa. And probably wondering where you are, or did you tell her you’d be coming to me afterwards?” he enquires and grabs one of the tissues himself to wipe at Luisa’s tears.  
“No, I forgot my phone in the car,” Luisa admits shakily, and starts crying right again.  
“Shhh, Luisa, it’s alright, you can call her from mine, or I can text her and tell her you’re here. Or I can really quickly go to pick her and Mia up, if you want?” he offers.  
“No, I don’t want her to be upset because of me again. I’ll just calm down now and go home,” Luisa concludes and sniffles a few times, finally swallowing her tears. “If you could just text her where I am and that I’ll be home soon, that would be great though,” she adds and tries a weak, little smile. “Thanks.”

-

Luisa isn’t sure if the silence that welcomes her home is relieving or frightening. “Rose?” she calls out.  
“Shush, she’s finally sleeping,” Rose announces, her voice coming out quietly.  
Walking into the living room, Luisa finds both of her loves on the couch together and her heart melts. Chris telling her to try living in the moment as much as she can was a piece of advice she’d definitely try to take now.  
From behind the couch, she leans over and kisses Rose’s forehead, then Mia’s. “How was your day?” she whispers.  
“Kind of awful,” Rose admits with a sigh. “I don’t think Mia likes me very much,” she frowns.  
Luisa can’t help but chuckle. “She doesn’t look like she hates you,” she points out.  
“She hates me,” Rose sighs, “All she did was cry, unless she was searching for my boob and getting disappointed, then she’d cry again, until she took the bottle, and then she stopped because she was eating, and then she went back to it!”  
“Rose,” Luisa starts, running a finger along her cheek, “She’s an infant, she cries. Everything’s new to her, she’s just learning everything….”  
“I’m new to her!” Rose huffs, quietly but dramatically. “She doesn’t like me as much as she likes you. I mean, I guess it’s better that she likes you…”  
“Rose,” Luisa warns, cutting her off. “She loves you, babe, how could she not?”

As Luisa runs her fingers over Mia’s wispy, dark baby hair, her blue eyes flutter open, seemingly confused by the motion on her scalp. “Hi baby girl,” Luisa laughs, “Good morning.”  
She looks from her Mama, where the voice is coming from, to her other Mama, whose bony chest she’s resting on. And then she starts crying.  
“Look, she’s upset! She wants you!” Rose sighs in defeat, handing her to Luisa. 

Luisa takes one whiff of her lovely, adorable, stinky baby and can’t help but smile. “Rose, she’s crying because she pooped,” she tells her. “Hey, you want her to like you? You should change her diaper.”  
Rose accepts the baby from her fiancee’s outstretched arms with a puzzled expression. “You insisted she already likes me,” she reminds her.  
“She will like you more if you change her diaper,” Luisa grins.  
Rose huffs. “Alrighty, Mia bug, let’s go upstairs to the change table…” She freezes, her legs shaking as she gets up from the couch. She won’t drop Mia, she knows that much… but…  
“Rose, what is it?” Luisa asks, a hand on her back. “Sit back down, sit…”

Rose sits back down on the couch, Luisa right beside her.  
“I-I can’t go up the stairs with her, to the change table,” she admits, her voice shaking like her legs had just been. “The stairs… I get dizzy on the stairs, I don’t want to fall with her…”  
Luisa nods. “Okay, okay, it’s okay,” she reassures her. “Hold on, I’ll go upstairs and get her stuff, you can change her down here, it’s okay!”  
“Don’t hurt yourself!” Rose calls, hearing Luisa trying to run up the stairs. As much as she doesn’t necessarily want to change Mia’s poopy diaper, she’s glad she gets the opportunity to. Luisa’s going to have a few more years worth of poopy diapers to change, she’s okay with changing the ones she can. 

“Get used to this,” Luisa winks, spreading the changing pad on the kitchen table, laying out a diaper, the diaper cream, the wipes… “You’re gonna have a lot more of these to change, she’s like a machine…” 

Rose loves her optimism. She loves everything about her fiancee. And she wishes things were different.

“All better,” Rose narrates to her baby, sealing a fresh diaper shut. “All clean. Look at that, Mia, Rose can change a poopy diaper, what do you know? What do you know, I can do it.”  
“It’s a miracle,” Luisa chuckles from her spot at the kitchen counter, leafing through the mail. Then she gasps a little, “I might’ve found a real miracle.”  
“What?” Rose asks curiously, scooping Mia up and joining her fiancee at the counter.  
Luisa holds up a card. “It’s from Raf,” she says. “I sent him a picture of Mia… I just thought he should know that he has a niece, you know? He sent me a card back.”  
Rose mumbles something inaudible but bitter under her breath, and Luisa shakes her head, opening the letter. “This isn’t Raf’s handwriting,” she mumbles. “It says it’s from him but it isn’t his writing. It’s probably Jane’s.” She glares at Rose before she even gets a chance to say anything bitter.  
Rose just sighs. “Sorry it got your hopes up,” she tries, taking Mia back to the living room.  
“Well,” Luisa sighs, “Jane’s happy for us, or something.”  
“She’s probably just glad I have my own baby now so I won’t consider trying to steal hers again,” Rose snorts.  
“I didn’t mention you,” Luisa admits hesitantly. “I didn’t wanna hear it from Raf, again.”  
“I get it,” Rose nods. “You don’t need that ass–” She stops herself from trashing her daughter’s uncle, in front of her at least. “We should surround our family with people who are supportive,” she tries again, as Luisa plops down on the couch beside her. 

Rose rubs circles on her back. “Sorry, I know the topic of your brother upsets you,” she acknowledges.  
“It’s okay, I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, you’re right,” Luisa agrees. “He doesn’t care that I’ve never met his kids, it makes sense that he doesn’t care to meet mine.”  
“You and Mia deserve better than that,” Rose says, “I’m sorry.” She presses a kiss to Luisa’s temple. “You have a better family now, besides me; you have Mia. She’s your family and she’s all you need.”  
“And you,” Luisa adds, resting her head on Rose’s shoulder.  
Rose nods, shutting her eyes. “Yeah, you have me too,” she agrees softly.

-

The next day is sunny and Rose had been able to convince Luisa that she was strong enough to go outside with the baby stroller. At first, Luisa had not been willing to let her sick lover set foot out of their; in her eyes; safe and infection free house, but after a good 30 minutes of good arguments and a tiny amount of begging combined with big, blue puppy eyes from Rose’s side, she had finally agreed.  
They had gone on a fairly short walk with Mia, and Rose had looked adorably proud pushing the stroller. However, after about 20 minutes it had become more of a “supporting yourself as you push” type deal.

Much to Luisa’s worry, Rose does not seem willing to take it easy now that they’re back home.  
“You should really rest a while now, Rose,” Luisa sighs, trying to maneuver her fiancee towards the couch.  
“I’m good,” Rose answers, grabbing Luisa’s hand.  
“Babe, I am almost sure you have a bit of a temperature and it would really be a good idea to lie down… At least for an hour?” she tries again, putting her hands on Rose’s hip.  
“I haven’t left the house for awhile, other than the walk today. I want to do stuff! Sleep is for the weak and I’m not willing to let that be me just yet!” Rose exclaims, wiggling out of Luisa’s grip and walks towards the basement.  
“What do you want down there?” Luisa asks, rolling her eyes, hands on her own hips now, as she waits nervously for Rose to come back up again. She has to fight the urge to descend the stairs herself, making sure Rose wouldn’t slip and fall (again), but she knows Rose gets really angry if she lurks behind her like a shadow every time she is even near a staircase.

About two minutes later, Rose’s pale face appears again from the dark basement and she makes it back up the stairs, accident-free to Luisa’s relief.  
“What do you need the hammer and the nails for?” Luisa asks puzzled.  
“What do people usually do with these tools, smarty-pants?” Rose asks her in return and slips back into the living room, walking up to their picture wall.  
After searching for the perfect spot for a moment, Rose concentratedly places the tip of the nail in the wished position and drives it into the wall with the hammer. With a satisfied nod she turns to the drawer on her right side and picks up an upside-down picture frame. Gently, she hangs it onto the new nail in the wall.  
“I thought we didn’t get the pictures yet?” Luisa stammers, even more confused now, looking at the picture of them, holding a sleeping Mia in their middle, smiling bright, big smiles.  
“I called the photographer yesterday and asked her how much longer it would take and she said, she would’ve called us today,” Rose smiles proudly, looking at the picture and puts an arm around Luisa’s shoulder.  
“Please don’t tell me you took the car to go and pick them up?” Luisa exclaims and turns in their embrace, to look Rose in the eyes, in case she should try to lie.  
“No, I didn’t. I told her Mia is not having a great day, you’re not here and I lied a little, telling her you took our only car… I was thinking about telling her I was simply too lazy to go and pick them up. When she came to drop them, she looked at me with such pity.” Rose grumbles. She’s starting to feel really dizzy again.  
“We look really cute… the picture’s perfect, “ Luisa just answers with a dreamy smile and brushes her fingers across the black frame.  
“It’s not too bad, yeah,” Rose chuckles and sits down on the armrest of the couch. She feels like her head is going to fall off her neck any second. Luisa turns around and looks at her with a knowing smile.  
“Too much exercise this morning, huh?” she teases gently and guides Rose fully onto the couch. “Mia will still be asleep for another 30 minutes and that means you’ll have to make some space for me,” she laughs and ushers Rose to move, before joining her on the couch. Rose’s movements are not exactly stressed, more so she’s half asleep already and all she does is snuggle into Luisa’s side, before passing out right after.  
Luisa puts an arm around her love and strokes over her back. With a soft kiss to Rose’s forehead she also closes her eyes and quickly falls into a deep, dreamless slumber.

After what feels like roughly 5 minutes of sleep, Mia’s wailing creeps into Luisa’s ear and with a sigh she untangles from the warm mess of blankets and Rose clutching to her chest. A quick look on the clock makes her wonder; it is past noon already. Mia must’ve slept much longer than she thought she would.  
Quickly Luisa walks up the stairs, careful to not mess with her incisions, and into her daughter’s room, where a very unpleasant smell already awaits her.  
“Goodness, Mia!” Luisa gasps and picks her crying baby up. To her worry, Mia feels alarmingly warm in addition. “What’s wrong, bug?” she soothes in a warm voice, while she undresses a heartbreakingly wailing Mia on the changing table.  
“What’s going on with her?” comes a sleepy voice from behind, making Luisa jump and turn around to find Rose leaning against the doorframe, rubbing her eyes.  
“Rose, the stairs… I thought–” Luisa stutters and shakes her head, in order to think clearly again, which is not exactly easy considering Mia’s current volume. “Stay at the door, okay?” she adds and finally opens Mia’s disaster diaper.  
“Why?” Rose asks, still sounding so very sleepy, Luisa’s afraid she might fall asleep while standing.  
“Stay back, Rose!” Luisa commands, when Rose tries to come closer anyways. “I think she might have the stomach bug or something. Stay at the door, I don’t want you to pick this up from her,” she adds concerningly, while wiping at her messy daughter.  
“She’s sick?!” Rose cries, sounding a lot more awake suddenly. “Why, what happened, why does our bug have a bug?” she yammers from her spot by the door, making Luisa feel even more like her head is bursting.  
“I don’t know, Rose, please, just wait there okay?” Luisa sighs, sealing a clean diaper around Mia’s feverish body, hearing Rose grumble in the background. A moment later there’s a loud thump and an ‘ouch’ coming from behind her.

“Rose, what did you do now?” Luisa frowns, trying to push Mia’s jerking legs back into her onesie. She picks her still crying daughter up and turns around, eyes resting on Rose rubbing her bruised shin with a suffering expression on her face. She had most likely bumped into Mia’s pink toy chest in the corner.  
“Does it hurt, darling?” Luisa asks and puts Mia down in her crib for a second. “Let me see,” she orders and quickly wipes her hands with a disinfectant, before she sits down beside Rose on the carpet, gently rolling up her right pant leg.  
Around halfway between ankle and knee Rose hisses and Luisa encounters an already purpling bruise and a small cut, oozing some blood.  
“I’ll get a bandaid, you stay here, okay?” Luisa tells her and gets up gently. Yet, in walking by, Rose’s hand on her knee stops her.  
“Lu, it’s a tiny bruise. No need to make a fuss. I don’t need a bandage or anything.” Rose declares and gets up herself, slightly wincing. “I’m fine,” Rose insists, staring into her fiancee’s brown eyes.  
“I’ve been hoping you would be, for months… but you’re not,” Luisa whispers.  
She’s cut off by Rose. “I’m fine as long as I say so! I hate it when you do this, Luisa! You look at me with those eyes, as if I’m going to fall to the floor dead any second! I bumped my leg, and yes, it did hurt for a moment. It would hurt without cancer just as well, and I’m not going to die because of it!” she yells and squeezes past Luisa, descending the stairs in a fast pace, forcing herself to not show the slightest sign of a limp. It works too– anger had always managed to make her exert herself.

Luisa is still standing in the door, baffled by what had just happened and realizes even Mia has stopped crying after her mommy’s rather loud outburst. Too shocked still about Rose’s behaviour, she stays with Mia until her little daughter is finally asleep again.  
After that, she slowly descends the stairs and stumbles into the kitchen, finding Rose sitting on the counter, downing a glass of pomegranate juice. Wordlessly, Luisa walks in and grabs a magazine. She walks over to the table, plops down on a seat and waits. It’s Rose’s turn to start the conversation.

“Luisa?” she finally says after a while, but Luisa pretends not to hear her. “I need sex.”  
“What?” Luisa laughs, she hadn’t been prepared for that.  
“We haven’t… done it… since Mia, and…” Rose goes on, blushing a deep red shade.  
“We can’t since Mia. That’s the difference. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m still not cleared to do anything active yet,” Luisa explains, now a bit more annoyance in her voice again.  
“I’m sorry about before… I overreacted,” Rose sighs and hops off the counter. She walks over to her love and slings her arms around her shoulders from behind. “Can we not fight anymore?” Rose breathes warmly into Luisa’s ear, placing a suggestive kiss on her earlobe right after. She continues her trail of kisses along her fiancee’s jawline and down her neck, tilting Luisa’s head to get access to her mouth too.  
“Rose,” Luisa whispers slowly, a little breathless. “Rose, are you trying to seduce me?”  
“ … maybe,” Rose purrs satisfied, when Luisa finally lets her kiss her on the lips.  
Suddenly, she pulls back, takes Luisa’s hands and leads her to the couch. Rose gently eases her down on top of it and swings a leg over her.  
“We’ll be careful,” she whispers between kisses. “I’ll give you the best, gentle, overprotective, hot sex you’ve ever had Luisa Alver,” Rose promises in such a serious voice, it draws a giggle deep from Luisa’s throat, before Rose (very gingerly) pulls down her pants.

-

 

Humming a soft melody Luisa rocks Mia in her arms. Their little girl was not having her best day after having a restless, colicky night thanks to her aching belly.  
In order to keep Rose from picking up the bug from her infant daughter Luisa hadn’t allowed her love in Mia’s bedroom at all today or overnight, and she knows Rose is everything but understanding right now. She had resorted to being pouty at breakfast and had not eaten anything again, only to get up afterwards and announce that she would be in her studio, and that’s where she’s been for hours now. Their very gentle lovemaking yesterday had been mostly great, and Luisa had not thought they’d argue this early in the morning again, but Mia was a sensitive topic for both of them.

“Sleep well, bug… “ Luisa whispers, as she gently puts Mia down in her crib and tiptoes to the door.  
Just when she pulls the door almost closed, she hears the sharp noise of glass splintering on the wooden floor. The sound of it makes her cringe and she listens for a few seconds, but the baby seems to be still fast asleep, so Luisa hurries to the last door on the corridor. She’s scared to open the door, but knows she has to anyways.

Inside she’s relieved to find Rose standing, back to Luisa but seemingly not hurt. Slowly she walks over to her and puts a hand on her bony shoulder.  
“Babe, what-” she starts, but Rose interrupts her.  
“I can’t control my hands. They won’t stop shaking. I can’t even draw a stupid straight line like that!” Rose barks angrily, staring down at her trembling hands as if giving them that look would make it stop.  
Looking around the room Luisa sees that one of the empty glasses Rose normally fills up with water or a painting medium for oil colours had apparently become a victim of her fiancee’s frustration.  
She wants to say something that will cheer Rose up, but she’s very well aware that this battle is lost before she can start it.  
“Come on we’ll go downstairs and watch a movie. Mia is finally asleep and it’s getting late… “ she tries, gingerly taking both Rose’s shaking hands into hers.  
“I don’t want to go and watch the 100th movie this week, snuggle up in 10 blankets and sit there with you as we both drown ourselves in self-pity yet again!” Rose hisses under her breath, well aware Luisa understood what she said and shakes her hands off.  
“It’s because I didn’t let you see her today right? Rose, if she has a stomach infection then that’s so, so dangerous for you right now. Your body isn’t strong enough to fight it and I will not let you pick up a deadly bug from our baby,” Luisa says, her voice sounding stricter than she wanted it to and she avoids Rose’s stone cold stare quickly after the words left her mouth.  
“Luisa, I’m dying anyways! Why can’t you get that into your head? I’m not going to get better, my body is failing, it’s messed up!” Rose bursts and takes a step back, searching for Luisa’s eyes.  
They don’t find hers; Luisa stares at the canvas instead, but she speaks anyways.  
“So this is it; this is us giving up? We’re just going to wait now, or what? I take it, you don’t want to try more chemo then… “ she whispers, still not looking at her fiancee.  
Rose snorts; laughs humorlessly, and if she wasn’t sick, Luisa would have yelled at her for being so detached; but this was Rose’s fight, and therefore in the end it was her decision to make. Luisa just can’t believe Rose could still pull off a show like this and give up at the same time. She had that fire still, that burning will she always used to have, and it was hard; impossible to imagine her simply throwing it all away now.  
Rose looks at Luisa, and when there’s no reaction, just more staring, it takes the wind out of her sails temporarily. She softens visibly and takes a step towards her love.  
“Hey… Lu, I… I’m just tired of it,” she starts. “I want to be here with you and Mia, and I don’t want to miss anything because I’m stuck in hospital. Chemo hasn’t worked for me; not ever, so why would it now? I’ll just feel so, so miserable again, and I am not willing to go through with that for the unrealistic chance of it suddenly starting to work now. It won’t, Luisa.”  
She puts a hand on Luisa’s arm, trying to make her look at her, and this time she finally does.  
“But it could! We have to try anything we can, Rose please!” Luisa sobs. “You’re the strongest person I know, and cancer has nothing on you!”  
“Luisa,” Rose forces her to look at her again, since she seems unable to hold eye contact with all those uncontrollable tears streaming down her beautiful face. “Lu, look at me. Look at me hands. They’re shaking, and they didn’t do that until this morning. I can’t win this. I don’t have control anymore; I can just try to make the best of it as long as I still can,” she tries.  
“We have always found a way out!” Luisa protests. “We’ve always made it work somehow; we’re not giving up now! You’re still strong enough to fight this, and that little tremur won’t stop you!”

Rose sighs, takes a step back again, raises her hands to her head in frustration, feeling the smooth, soft skin, knowing there will never be a mess of red curls again.  
“Do you know how hard it really is, Luisa? Do you even know how exhausting just fucking standing upright is for me by now? I will perpetually get worse, there are no miracles. I know, you want to believe that, but it’s bullshit! You have to stop lying to yourself about this because we’re not going to be fine, Luisa,” she stops, stares at the brunette’s back, waits for her to turn around again and just… but Luisa doesn’t.  
She has turned away from Rose, crossed her arms tightly across her chest and stands facing the painting, sobbing silently.  
Although Rose goes on slower, picking her words carefully, she is fully aware of how much they will hurt Luisa.  
“Nothing has ever been fine with us. All we have ever been is good at ignoring what kind of mess we are. We should have stopped this, us, years ago. We were never meant to be, but we just wouldn’t have it. And you know what? Again, it will end with me hurting you and leaving you all alone. You and a daughter that will never even remember me. I can’t do this.” 

As if through fog, Luisa observes Rose grab her jacket and hat and storm out of the room. She can’t move. She can just stare at the beautiful but unfinished head, unmistakably Mia’s, on the big canvas in front of her and wait for this paralyzing feeling to disappear again. The front door slams shut with a forceful noise and down the hallway Mia starts screaming in her crib.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ll find someone new  
> We’ll shrug off our armour  
> I’ll take what I want  
> And then I’ll leave you  
> I’ll be the shadow that you see at night  
> That shred of doubt in the back of your mind  
> A talking head, a silhouette  
> And I’ll be your old romancer  
> Your forgotten partner  
> And still I got no answers for you


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All this time her rose had been slowly withering, until now her last petals were about to fall off, if only she’d let go off the stem. She would hurt, she would bleed, by letting go– but she has to. It’s only fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "A sign in your eyes  
> A familiar light  
> Says it's alright  
> You said you don't have to speak   
> I can hear you  
> I can feel all the things you've ever felt before   
> I said it's been a long time   
> Since someone looked at me that way..."
> 
> Please grab your tissues now, and have them handy... we will see you on the other side.

Chapter 15

The front door falls shut behind her with a satisfyingly loud noise cutting through the suffocating silence that’s occupying her head.  
She doesn’t know what to do. For the first time ever.  
But getting some space between her and her problems has always done the trick for her; so why not now?  
Rose isn’t stupid enough to take the car in her condition, though. She can’t control her trembling hands, now even less than before in her studio. Once she’s stepping on the street and their house lies behind her she starts trying to run. She doesn’t know how her legs are able to carry her but somehow they do.  
She has always managed to run away from her problems, from everything really.  
Seems to still work; even now.

-

Chris had never expected her to take up on his offer to call him whenever she needed someone. Even less, at 4am.  
“Hey Chris… It’s… It’s Rose.”  
“Gorgeous, hey, where the hell are you? It’s not a good sign when you call me ‘Chris’. What happened?“ he says gently, his voice still raspy from sleep.  
“Can you pick me up, please? I… I don’t know, Chris…” she continues, voice sounding tired.  
He doesn’t need an explanation. Already getting dressed, he asks her for her relative address and tries to calm her a bit. “Okay gorgeous, listen– Just wait there. I’m leaving the house now and I’m gonna be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll see you soon.”

He stops his car in a parking lot just beside the street. Rose is sitting on the ground, leaning against the wall of some high building. She looks less than good, so he hurries to get out of the car and kneels down beside her.  
“Good lord, girl, what happened, what are you doing out here?” Chris asks her in a concerned voice.  
“I… I needed some space, I guess. I felt like the walls were closing in on me at home,” she says quietly and stifles a yawn.  
“Come on, we’re taking you home now,” he whispers and gets back up on his feet, while Rose makes no movement.  
“You have to help me. I… I don’t think I can get up,” she confesses, her pale face blushing so hard he can see it in the darkness. He bends down and scoops her thin body up with no effort at all.  
“You have to eat more, flyweight,” he jokes sadly.  
“You need to shut up and drive, Christian,” she slurs sleepily but gives him a small smile when he eases her down into the passenger seat. “Thank you. I mean it. I owe you something,” she adds more seriously.  
“No, you don’t owe me anything,” Chris objects, smiling as he sees her already slipping into a light sleep in his passenger seat.

After hours of thinking, and wandering, and staring at the big moon, Rose had realized something; this time she couldn’t run, to be precise, she didn’t even want to, because she had never been happier in her life with Luisa and now with their little daughter too.  
And right there, right at the spot Chris had just picked her up from, she had allowed one last tear to roll down her cheek.

Half past four and Chris returns a very sleepy Rose back to Luisa, and Rose stays in her arms for the next two days.  
They didn’t really talk about their fight and her running away, or trying to, or whatever it was she’d done– they just didn’t talk about it.  
It didn’t matter, she had come back, she was here now. Rose had whispered ‘sorry’, when a crying Luisa had opened the door for them in the middle of the night, and with that it was done.

-

Since that night, Rose hadn’t eaten at all, and she barely stayed awake. That night had cost her all the energy she had had left. She was slowing down now, and she probably wouldn’t ever speed back up. 

By early afternoon, two days later, Luisa feels Rose’s breathing change, while she has an arm slung around her as they lay in bed, and she panics. “Rose, are you okay?”   
Rose nods slightly, but that isn’t the truth.   
“Does something hurt?” Luisa inquires, taking Rose’s wrist to check her pulse.   
Rose doesn’t answer, but her breathing becomes more laboured.  
“Okay babe, we need to go to the hospital,” Luisa tells her, after deciding Rose’s heartbeat is much too fast too.  
“I don’t want to!” Rose coughs out and opens her eyes, actually showing Luisa for the first time, that she does listen and understand properly.   
“You can’t breathe!” Luisa argues. “You need oxygen. Come on, get up, I’ll call Chris to watch Mia.” She sits up and grabs both of Rose’s hands. She can see Rose is actually trying to sit up too with her help, yet it doesn’t really seem to work.  
“I can’t,” Rose finally says, “I don’t think I can get up, it hurts.”   
“Okay,” Luisa nods, trying to stay calm, “Okay, new plan, Chris is coming with us to the hospital,” she announces and guides Rose’s head carefully back onto the pillow.  
“Then who are you leaving Mia with?” Rose asks weakly, eyes falling shut already again.

Luisa used to be a doctor, she could think quick. “Jane, we’re leaving her with Jane,” she answers. “Provided that she picks up the phone, and agrees, and doesn’t decide she hates me…”   
Rose would have replied with something snarky if she had the air in her lungs to do so. Luisa keeps a hand on her shoulder as she dials Jane’s number.   
“Hi, Jane,” she starts, “it’s Luisa– Yes, um, everything’s not really fine, right now– Listen, I wouldn’t ask unless it was an emergency, I know you’ve got Mateo, and–” The urgency in Rose’s increased coughing nudges her along. “Would you be able to watch Mia for a few hours? I’m so sorry, I have to take my… Rose, I have to take Rose, to the hospital, s-she can’t breathe. I don’t want to bring Mia to the ER– Thank you so much, yes, coming here would be great. Yes, I’ll send you our address. Thank you.” 

“And now we’re calling an ambulance.” Luisa settles, grabbing Rose’s wrist again. Even though her heartbeat is too high, the steady drumming against her own fingers helps Luisa to keep calm somehow.   
Rose tries to groan, “I don’t–”   
“You do,” Luisa shuts her down, as the call goes through, and she calmly gives the paramedics their address and they promise to be there soon. “And lastly, I’m calling Chris, to meet you at the hospital, because I have to wait here for Jane.”   
“You’re calling Chris cause I’m dying,” Rose coughs.   
“Don’t say that,” Luisa huffs, dialing Chris’ number, “I just don’t want you to be alone at the hospital.”  
“That’s nice,” Rose tries.   
Luisa lets go of her wrist, takes her hand instead and squeezes. “Save your air,” she tells her. “The ambulance is gonna be here soon.”   
“I’ll miss you,” Rose whispers with a grin and Luisa is not sure how she means it. 

-

Just when Jane turns her car into the street, an ambulance races past her and she catches herself thinking at least I won’t have to see Rose, then. She parks her car in the driveway of the house and gets out. The house was nice– really nice, actually, and big. Not that it was a surprise or it stuck out in this neighbourhood, but still she had not imagined it this way.

Sucking in a deep breath, she rings the doorbell.  
Everything is okay. Mateo is at school, Rafael will pick him up, then they’ll go to the hotel, safe and miles away– and Luisa would open this door, not… her. She wouldn’t even be here.  
She had agreed to this because she so often harped on the fact that Luisa was still and always would be family, despite her connection to Rose… who Jane, understandably, still had her hesitations about. 

“Jane, hi…” Luisa stammers, when she opens the front door.  
“Hey, Luisa. It’s… It’s nice to see you again after such a long time, I guess,“ Jane answers, feeling just as awkward as she imagines Luisa must be feeling, reaching out for a hug.   
“Thank you so, so much, Jane,” Luisa emphasizes and hastily gestures Jane to enter.  
“Please, don’t even worry,” Jane argues and steps into the house, “It’s an emergency. I hope… I hope she’s… okay.”  
Luisa nods, with a small, panicky smile, before she quickly pulls a sweater on. “T-thank you, yeah, me too.”  
Jane didn’t know the half of it.

Luisa shows Jane the kitchen and where the stuff she might need is. Then she takes her upstairs to Mia’s room, where the baby is fast asleep, unimpressed by all the drama around her.  
“I fed her just recently, she should be fine for a while, but the milk’s in the fridge if she starts getting fussy; and I changed her diaper too. She’s had a stomach ache the last few days, but yesterday she was doing mostly fine, so she shouldn’t be any trouble for you,” Luisa says quietly, as she exits the room with Jane again. “We shouldn’t be too long… at least I hope we won’t. If you need anything, help yourself, Jane. Tea, coffee, food- whatever,” she adds, a single tear rolling down her cheek.  
“Luisa, what happened? T-to Rose, I mean… “ Jane asks gently, a hand on Luisa’s arm.   
Luisa looks back at her and it seems she’s having troubles keeping back more tears, but then a short, humorless laugh escapes her. “Bad blood, Jane. That’s what happened to Rose. If you ask her at least,” Luisa snorts and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. “She has leukemia.”  
“Oh… I’m so sorry,” Jane replies. They both feel that Rose is not a topic they should talk about more.  
“Um, if you feel okay, I’m gonna get going?” Luisa proposes shyly and when Jane nods with a small smile, she heads for the front door and is gone in the blink of an eye.

The house is quiet as Jane walks into the living room, spotting a cozy couch in front of the TV, a black piano in the corner and a wall full of picture frames.  
Curiously, she steps closer to take a look at them.  
A lot of frames hold black and white pencil sketches, but most of them are photographs– of Luisa and of Rose too, both of them smiling big, happy smiles. Jane takes her time looking at all these happy memories of two lives she doesn’t really know anything about, honestly, and she catches herself smiling too. If she didn’t know Rose, or better, if she knew her even less than she does, she might even admit these photographs are some of the happiest she’s ever seen.

Close to the piano, she finds a picture that must’ve been added quite recently; it shows Mia sleeping peacefully in Luisa’s arms. Jane steps closer and examines the picture. She almost can’t recognise the woman beside Luisa in this one.  
One pale, freckled arm wrapped around the brunette, the other hand gently holding the baby’s tiny one. Jane can see now, Luisa had told the full truth earlier. The long, red hair she remembered the woman having was all gone now, and she looked awfully thin. She was really sick. Yet, even in this picture Jane can see a happy glint in those impressive blue eyes, that one didn’t forget easily.

No one deserved to be sick like that, no matter what they’d done in life– killing their lover’s father, amongst others, kidnapping a baby, being an international crime lord– Rose didn’t deserve it. And even less did Luisa. 

-

Luisa bustles into the ER just as Rose’s doctor does. They’ve set Rose up with a bed and an oxygen mask in the meantime, but now her doctor’s here and they can really figure out what’s going on.  
After a few questions and a few small tests, Dr. Jandl sighs as she comes to an unfortunate, but easy to reach, conclusion. “You’re in respiratory failure, Rose.”   
The only sounds that come from her are the steady in and out noises into the oxygen mask.  
“What do we do to fix it?” Luisa asks, on her behalf.   
“She needs oxygen,” the doctor replies simply. “Guys… this… we knew this was coming. Rose, your body’s working so hard with so little energy to fight this cancer, it doesn’t have the energy to support all your organs too. Oxygen isn’t the end of the world, though. You’re still breathing on your own, the oxygen is just supporting you.”  
“What happens when she’s not breathing on her own anymore?” Chris asks hesitantly. Everyone had kind of forgotten he was there.  
“Then we can put her on a ventilator–” the doctor starts.  
Rose shakes her head quickly, and removes the oxygen mask for a second. “I don’t want that,” she objects.  
The doctor nods. “And it’s your choice,” she reinforces. “So then, it’s just oxygen for now. We’ll keep you here for monitoring. If there isn’t degradation in the next 24 hours, we’ll get you a portable tank to take back home with you. Okay?”  
Both women and Chris nod.  
“Do you think there’s going to be degradation?” Rose asks.   
The doctor can’t lie, so she just sighs instead. “I don’t foresee improvement,” she answers. “We’ll get you a room, Rose,” she continues, before leaving the room. “Hang tight.” 

-

They’re used to these rooms by now– the pistachio green walls, the artificial lighting, now the whizzing of the oxygen machine, sending oxygen through the cannula to help Rose breathe, to give her some more time. 

Rose scoots over so Luisa can lay with her; she wants her close. She is tired as hell, but that doesn’t matter right now.  
She knows what is coming, she can feel everything slowly slipping from her fingers, something reaching out for her.  
She doesn’t think Luisa knows yet, though.  
“Luisa,” she asks quietly, barely awake. “Lu, I love you, I just want you to know that.”   
Luisa shakes her head. “Rose, you don’t need to say that, right now,” she tells her. “I know you do, and I love you too…”   
Rose nods. “Lu, I’m afraid it is time to say that,” she whispers.  
“It is not time,” Luisa argues. She refused to accept that today was the day she’d been dreading since the day they got Rose’s diagnosis.   
“Maybe it is,” Rose tries. “And I don’t want anything left unsaid, I want you to know that I love you. And Mia too… Mia, I want to see her. Do you think…?”  
“I could call Jane,” Luisa nods, “I’ll see if she’ll bring her over.”   
“Thank you,” Rose tells her, as Luisa gets up to take the call outside, but not without placing a gentle kiss on Rose’s lips first.  
“And Lu? Remember what I said. I won’t go until you let me. So, it isn’t really time, yet,” Rose whispers into the kiss.  
Luisa nods again, before ducking outside to call Jane. She hates that she has to make this call right now. 

“Hey, Luisa,” Jane greets her. “Mia and I are doing really great, she’s so calm and mellow, and of course adorable, I love her.”   
Luisa smiles a little, “That’s great to hear, I’m glad she isn’t being trouble… would you be able to bring her over here? I’m so sorry, it’s just–”  
“Things aren’t going too well?” Jane asks quietly. “I’m sorry, Luisa… Yeah, yeah of course I’ll bring Mia over, we’ll be there soon.”  
“Thank you,” Luisa answers. “I left the carseat in the garage, it’s easy to put in–”  
“Not a problem,” Jane eases her. “We’ll be there soon. Tell Rose Mia’s coming.” 

-

When Luisa enters the room again, she feels like walking into a vacuum. As if time does not pass in here, and her thoughts are halted– except for this four letter word, that one name in her head.

Rose.

Whenever she had tried to grasp what is soon going to happen… the inevitable… her brain crashed; she just switched it off, restarted it; pushed those thoughts away. Think of something else, Luisa.

She’s still here. It’s okay. 

Luisa gently strokes over her sleeping lover’s cheek, takes her warm, freckled hand with the golden ring into hers. She can hear Rose’s breaths rattling dreadfully in her lungs, despite the oxygen. She must have fallen asleep again right after Luisa had left the room.

Time does pass. And after all, it’s slowly running out. Stop. Don’t think of what… She’s still breathing.

Grabbing the pale hand in her own tighter, Luisa leans forward and places a faint kiss on Rose’s sharp cheekbone.  
When she sits back up again and opens her eyes, clear blue ones stare back at her.

She’s still here. There’s still those bluest of blue eyes. And blue is still Luisa’s favourite color.

“Hey…” Luisa whispers, and feels how Rose’s hand in hers finally returns the comforting grip. She starts stroking over Rose’s knuckles with her thumb, letting it travel between the countless freckles, a pattern she knows in contrast to the chaos her life is drowning her in.  
“Hey,” Rose whispers back and smiles sleepily, speaking demanding a lot of concentration and effort apparently. “Darling, why didn’t you wake me up, once you came back in? Are you okay?”   
“I just came back a minute ago,” Luisa answers, kissing Rose on her chapped, purplish lips again, feeling how she smiles into the kiss, even laughs a little. “What is it… What’s so funny?” Luisa asks shyly and shifts her gaze down to their intertwined hands, both wearing those unfairly golden, expensive… worthless rings.  
“You always find the best excuse to not answer all my questions. It’s alright though, it was a stupid one,” Rose grins and reaches over to tip Luisa’s chin up, making her look at her again.

There it is.

That smile that is so much brighter, always excelling the last one before it.  
“I just want you to know that I’m okay. I’m not in pain, I’m not scared, just very tired,” Rose continues, keeping the smile she knows means so much to Luisa firmly in place.  
With a small smile finding its way onto Luisa’s lips, she reaches her hand up to Rose’s head on   
the pillow, gently stroking over it. “Did you notice your hair’s growing back?” she asks, her voice getting lost somewhere during the last few words, much like her eyes’ focus, until she shakes herself back into wide-awakeness. “Well, it’s pretty much just orange fluff, but-”  
“Orange fluff? There goes the last bit of self-esteem I had left,” Rose interrupts her with a hoarse laugh, still recognizable as hers, but its melody lost with the low oxygen.

“Luisa? Promise me something. I don’t want you to forget me, but don’t think of me too much… I want you to move on, be happy, and…” she has to pause, shaken by a coughing fit, causing Luisa’s eyes to spill again, the tears warmly running down their coincidental tracks on her cheeks, dropping onto the back of Rose’s hand too.  
“Don’t, Lu,” she mumbles, when she’s finally able to control her breathing more or less again.  
“There’s so many things we haven’t done yet!” Luisa whispers, her emotions getting the best of her. “We wanted to dress Mia up for her first Christmas and put her under the tree and let her admire all the ornaments and the lights, and we wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with Chris this year, and… and you said you’d show me Paris one day. Why is life so unfair to us, was it not enough already, what we’ve been through?” Luisa cries, shaking her head fiercely, brown locks beautifully dancing.  
She forces herself to look at Rose, the woman she loves, and always has loved, and she gives in again and accepts the massacre that lays ahead for them, her last wave of protest silently ebbing off. “I love you, and I promise I will try my best, to be happy again, and not to cry when I think of this chapter of my life, not forever, at least.”   
With that she leans forward and rests her head carefully on Rose’s shoulder.  
Rose brings her hand up to Luisa’s neck, gently stroking over the soft tan skin with her numb, discoloured fingertips. “Don’t cry when you have so much to smile about,” Rose tells her, her voice just barely a whisper now.   
Rose feels her love move, a little laugh perhaps, almost definitely at least a smile. “I love you so much,” she whispers.   
“I love you too,” Luisa answers back, her voice an equal whisper to Rose’s due to her emotions getting the best of her.

They lay there like that, making easy small talk and laboured laughter, until Chris comes in with their sleeping baby in his arms.  
“Your friend Jane is so sweet, she’s a doll,” he mentions. “How’s it going?”  
Luisa smiles at him lightly, taking the baby from his arms and he knows.  
He lingers in a hug for a moment. “If you two need anything, I’m right outside,” he adds, swallowing hard and puts on a smile though it’s hard.  
“Thanks, Christian,” Rose tells him, trying with all the energy she has left to smile back at him.  
His eyes linger like that hug had, this last look between him and his new friend, taking in her face, and her voice, and her smile. “Thank you, Rosie,” he winks, waving as he exits the room, the goosebumps creeping up all over his arms hidden by his shirt. He can’t see this again.

“I like him,” Rose mentions, carefully scooping Mia up in her arms, making sure the infant’s comfortable. “You better keep him around, Lu, for you and for Mia.”   
“I will try,” Luisa muses in agreeance, her eyes trained on the image of her wife and their baby, while she plays with the golden ring around her own finger. She wanted to remember this forever. Officially, Rose isn’t her wife, but their Boston promise was enough for Luisa; it had to be enough; it will be enough.

Rose doesn’t take her eyes off her baby. She hates that she is going to miss her getting any bigger than this– her first birthday, first day of school, first signs of puberty, first girlfriend… boyfriend, if it couldn’t be avoided… first time driving.  
Her baby will stay forever that to her, a baby. It wasn’t meant to be this way, it wasn’t fair, but if it is all she has, she will take it all in as much as she still can, for all that it is.  
In this very moment, Mia slowly wakes up and looks at her mommy with the equally blue eyes, and she doesn’t know it will be the last time; she will not remember.  
The little girl moves on the blanket, turning her head a little and then her tiny mouth curls up and it looks like a smile.  
“Look at this beautiful thing we made, Lu,” Rose whispers, her eyes dully shining. “It wasn’t even me, it was all you. You’re going to be so good to her.”  
Luisa smiles, shaking her head and stroking a hand along Mia’s back. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” she reminds her love. “I can’t do it without you,” she whispers, smile all gone again, voice strained, eyes wet.  
“You can,” Rose reassures her, moving one weak, freckled hand from her baby to her wife. “You’re the strongest woman I know, strong, and beautiful, and everything our daughter will be one day.” 

Luisa nods. The thing is, Rose was the strongest woman she knew. And that woman now, though so strong, lay here so weak, and so frail. All this time her rose had been slowly withering, until now her last petals were about to fall off, if only she’d let go off the stem. She would hurt, she would bleed, by letting go– but she has to. It’s only fair. 

Rose’s light struggle for breaths yanks Luisa from her poetic thoughts and back into their harsh reality. As she wants to place the oxygen mask over her love’s nose and mouth again, she hesitates, and when Rose looks at her with those blue eyes and shakes her head weakly, a strange composure takes over Luisa’s body.  
“Rose,” she whispers, keeping her eyes locked with her. “I… You can go, babe. I don’t want you to, but… it’s time, you’ve been fighting long enough. I’m going to be okay, I… I promise. Me and Mia, we’re going to be just fine.”  
Rose tries to smile lightly. “I don’t want to go,” she whispers in return. “I don’t want to leave you, I never would if I could just… I hope you know that.”  
“It’s okay, I know,” Luisa reassures her. “‘The Greatest Love Story Ever Told’ has run its course, I guess. Everything ends.”  
“This isn’t the end,” Rose contends.  
Luisa nods, silencing and just lays down beside her fiancee, taking everything in one last time. The way Rose’s body feels, her smell, the way her breathing sounds, the temperature of her skin, all those beloved freckles, the light in her eyes.  
Luisa connects their lips again in a bittersweet kiss, tasting the one woman she had always wanted, couldn’t have for so long; who she had lost before and found again, believed to finally be able to spend her life with… and had to let go forever now. She closes her eyes for just a moment and takes it all in…  
“I love you, Luisa,” Rose whispers.  
“I love you too.”

Luisa isn’t sure for how long she’s been laying here with her eyes closed, feeling Rose’s body warm beside her. It could have been minutes, hours, days even, and it feels like only a few seconds, until that moment is ripped from her by the deafening sound of the heart monitor and it’s monotonous beep. She springs up and looks at Rose. She finds the light completely gone from her eyes now; they are fixed straight ahead, not fully open but not closed either.

Luisa’s hands shake as she takes Mia back, and for a long second the noise of the heart monitor disappears from her mind, leaving her standing in utter stillness and speechlessness, as she slowly feels an agonizing wave of pain overtake every fiber of her body. Rose’s eyes had always been a source of strength for her, their deep, blue color radiating sheer life itself. Now their sparkle is lost, their cold fire extinguished, dead.

She’s gone.

Out of nowhere, the heartless beep finds Luisa again, and when Dr. Jandl and a handful of nurses rush into the room, causing even more unpleasant noise, she starts to cry. There’s no sound coming from her, the tears flow down silently, but they’re coming from a place she didn’t even know she had inside of her, so dark and hurt and lost. She can’t help it. 

Rose is gone. 

Chris comes in and takes the baby and Jane comes in and wraps her up in a hug, telling her repeatedly that it’s okay, it’s going to be okay– but it isn’t going to be okay, how can it be? How can it ever be okay again?

December 5th, 5:54 pm, her life came to a grinding halt, when Rose’s had just simply ended. She could never guess it would hurt this much, she couldn’t describe how much she already missed her, how she wished this was all one horrible dream… but it isn’t. This is real. This has happened. And it will not be okay. This time she will not come back. It will not be okay ever again. Outside, the sun is setting and Luisa stares out the window, watching how the orange sky is slowly swallowed by velvety, purple darkness.

Rose is gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Life is right before our eyes  
> We say hello, we say... goodbye...  
> But we will always be together  
> It all happened so fast  
> Let's make this moment last  
> For you, for me, forever..."
> 
> Unfortunately, the time has come, friends, as everyone's does. We are sorry, it does hurtttt.... you can yell at us....   
> And we have an epilogue, coming next Thursday, to give us all a bit of closure ♡ we love you don't hate us pls   
> (ps that quote is from Forever by Clare Bowen you guys should listen to it it's sad and gives me feelings)


	16. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her heart is yearning to feel her love here, in her favourite place, yearning to feel less alone, even though she’s surrounded by hundreds of people...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you  
> Take me back to the night we met  
> I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you  
> Oh, take me back to the night we met..."
> 
> "What am I gonna do, to fill the empty space  
> No nothing can replace  
> The life we made me and you  
> Now what am I gonna do?"
> 
> A little peek into the weeks that followed Rose's death.... my heart aches for Luisa too, guys.

Epilogue

Luisa adjusts the warm, pink hat on Mia’s head as she carries her in the baby carrier down the aisle of the rose garden. She had been here not that long ago, Mia still in her belly, and her love still by her side.  
She is here now too, in a way.

Boston. The Christopher Columbus Waterfront Park. Luisa had never thought she would be back here so soon– much less alone. 

It’s the 31st of December, it’s so dark and cold out, which aptly matches Luisa’s mood. They had arrived yesterday evening and Luisa had spent a dreamless night in a nice hotel room with Mia sharing the bed.  
Today, the park is bustling with people ready to ring in the New Year with happy, full hearts– and then there’s Luisa. Her heart is yearning to feel her love here, in her favourite place, yearning to feel less alone, even though she’s surrounded by hundreds of people. The unhurriedly falling snowflakes swallow every sound around her, the people, the laughter, the music, as she walks down towards the pier now, her little girl snuggled against her chest. It’s an appropriate day for the reason she’s here. It would never be a good day to spread her love’s ashes, but today is as good as it gets. Rose would’ve liked it.

In the past few weeks, Luisa hadn’t cried a lot. She had felt numb and grateful for how much Mia needed her; distracting her from what had happened. She hadn’t slept much, generally, she had avoided their bedroom whenever she could; the pillows still smelled like Rose, and that made her cry all night instead of sleeping. Luisa knows she’s still in denial, she couldn’t think clearly, her brain didn’t accept the truth yet.

After saying goodbye to her alone one last time in hospital, after those blue eyes had closed forever, and leaving without her, Luisa had stayed in a bubble of unbelieving and denial for almost a week.  
She hadn’t cried once. She could still feel her.

Chris had come over everyday to see how she was doing, and Jane had called her a few times, but Luisa wanted to be alone, and she didn’t talk much, especially not about Rose.  
Six days later though, it had hit her again with full force; she had a headache, probably from the lack of sleep, and she couldn’t reach the ibuprofen on the high shelf.  
And for a second, she could feel her, right behind her; she could hear bare feet tapping across the wooden floor; smell this gorgeous flowery scent of hers, and she could have sworn any second she’d hear her say, “Need some help, short stack?”  
But when Luisa spun around, there was no one there, and she collapsed to the floor, crying, finally.  
She couldn’t stay there forever though, she had a baby to take care of. And a headache, and a heartache.

When Chris stopped by an hour later, he found her with Mia on the couch, the baby girl greedily eating and Luisa shedding tears. He had sat down beside her, tears in his own eyes and had said how sorry he was, how he knew how miserable she was feeling. Luisa had just started sobbing desperately, until he pulled her in a hug and held her until she had no tears left.

Christmas had come and gone with a heavy heart. Jane had invited her to spend Christmas Eve in Miami with the Villanueva family, including the nephew she’d never met; Jane promised he would be there, but that Rafael wouldn’t.  
She accepted, to her own surprise, and she’d almost enjoyed the lowkey, festive night, and meeting Mateo for the first time and seeing him get to meet his new cousin, but it had still been hard. The Villanuevas were such a nice family, they had traditions, and so much love– and she’d wanted that with Rose. She wanted to be spending Mia’s first Christmas with her fiancee in their house, making their own traditions–

She pushes all that out of her mind. She isn’t going to cry today, not here, feeling so ironically alone in a crowded park in the freezing cold. If she cried she’d just make icicles.

For a moment Luisa turns around and lets her eyes wander over the lights and the extravagance of the park. New Years had always been a fun time to her, long before Rose.  
Last year, they had spent the holiday together in their house, with hors d'oeuvres and noisemakers and board games. It had mostly been love, food, and even more love(making) as they rang in the new year and vowed to make it their best one yet– more love, food, and love making.  
They didn’t know Rose wouldn’t last the year, how could they? And thus, this year, Luisa feels nothing, no magical warmth in her heart, no hope for the new year and no love for the past year, just coldness and dormancy. Her heart feels as cold and lost as the stray snowflakes that she has to continuously blink from her eyelashes. She wishes with everything in her, right down to her really cold toes, that Rose could be here with her and their baby. Mia had already grown so much in the time Rose had been gone, just short of a month; how much would she continue to grow in the coming years, all without Rose?

Mia’s eyes had changed colour. They’d slowly lost their newborn blue, the pigment Rose had never let go of, and turned a hazel-brown, like Luisa’s own. Part of her had been heartbroken, once again losing those sparkling blues, but a part of her was relieved that she didn’t have to live with a reminder of her fiancee every time she looked at her daughter. She didn’t know if she could handle that, and now she didn’t have to. 

Luisa turns around, away from all the people celebrating the fast-approaching new year; she hears the countdown in the back of her mind, looking out at the water again.  
She can’t believe this feeling will ever pass.  
As she watches grey dust, the last physical remainder of her late lover, disappear slowly in deep blue water, she feels one hot tear roll down her cheek. “I miss you, Rose. I love you.”

And then, there were fireworks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then, there were fireworks, my friends <3 THANK YOU, SO MUCH, for making it to the end of this part of Luisa and Mia, and Rose's, story with us. This is not the end though, we love Mia, and Luisa, and Rose, too much to just leave them here. Cate and I don't know what self control is? We can't just stop here? 
> 
> (In the meantime though, tune in on Tuesday, I'm gonna be posting the first part of a new thing????) 
> 
> So again, thank you all, and I (Belle) want to thank Cate too. This was her brainchild, her idea that she shared with me, this would absolutely not have worked without her and her hard work and determination and absolutely mindblowing creativity. You have made collab writing this an amazing experience and never a burden, I love the family and the story we built, and the friendship too. ♡
> 
> We hope you smiled. We hope you cried. We hope you enjoyed. Remember remember the 5th of _December_. 
> 
> -
> 
> "And now I'm reaching out with every note I sing  
> And I hope it gets to you on some pacific wind  
> Wraps itself around you and whispers in your ear  
> Tells you that I miss you and I wish that you were here..."


End file.
